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This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by PETA Anne Anderson,
chief Nursing Officer at Jackson North Medical Center. PETA Anne,
it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Good morning, Lauren. Thank you for having me on the, on the podcast today.
It was a pleasure. It's a pleasure getting to,
to introduce myself and talk a little bit more of what's going on in healthcare
at Jackson North.
Well, absolutely. And you know,
I'm excited to have you on because I know a lot of the listeners in our audience
today, you know, are really, um, just having a lot of the same, um,
challenges as well as seeing opportunities, um, in the healthcare space,
just as you are. So I'm excited to dive into some of the questions,
but before we do that, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself,
your background in Jackson North Medical Center?
Sure, absolutely. So, as you said,
I'm the Chief Nursing Officer at Jackson North Medical Center,
which is a community hospital within a Jackson Health System. I, it's a,
currently, it's a 380 bed, 82 bed facility,
and we serve a diverse population. Prior to this role,
I've served for over 15 years in, um,
several leadership roles that has influenced nursing and
operations in the healthcare industry.
I completed my master's of science degree, um, Walden University,
and I'm currently pursuing my D N P at Walden.
As I, I,
I strive to be someone of a lifelong learner.
I'm also a recipient of a u Doctors of Humane letter that I received from
Barry University for my work that I did during the pandemic.
Absolutely. That's fantastic. And, you know,
congratulations on going through the D N P process.
I think certainly it makes a big difference,
and I can imagine being that lifelong learner and somebody who's striving to
always get better really helps your teams too.
Absolutely.
Now, I am wondering if you could talk about what are some of your top priorities
right now? I know there's a lot happening in the healthcare space,
and so from your perspective, where are you spending most of your time?
So, great question, Lauren. You're so right. As a nurse executive,
there is so much going on and, and if I would say,
I would say the practices and processes in our healthcare facility,
especially at Jacksonville right now, is very fluid.
But I must say I wanna laser focus and prioritize on
employee engagement, staff retention, and our ED capacity.
So I think like most of the healthcare facilitators that went through the
pandemic, and we had the staff turnover, nurses traveling,
we had nursing burnout, and now we're faced with all these challenges of,
um,
making sure that we can get back to some kind of normalcy with,
you know,
our staffing and making sure that our employees feel like
they have a voice and,
and get them engaged where they want to be at a place where they wanna work. So,
at Jackson North, we've done a phenomenal job at,
with our HR partners, you know, in, in Phil or, or nursing put,
um, roles at Jackson North during the pandemic.
We had significant turnover,
but we have reduced our turnover significantly over the last year and filled
our, our, our vacancies where we have reduced our, um, premium pays.
Some of the things that we're doing is, um,
we have our employee activity council, so that's led by the staff.
We want our staff to feel like they have a voice on what they want to
happen in their space. Another thing that we're currently doing,
we're using the Care Connect tool because we know that, you know,
it's good to to, to recruit and bring the staffing.
The most important thing that we as nurse executives must understand
is that we have to retain them. So I'm focusing on how can I retain,
so we have our Care Connect tool that we do some point check in with leaders.
Before we used to do 60, 90, now we're doing 10 days, 30 days,
60 days, 90 days, and 120 days with each new employee,
nurses that are, are onboarded.
And then every 30 days after that for the first year.
Because what we noticed that our turnovers was during that first
year, and nonetheless with the shortage of nursing schools,
we're getting a lot of nurses that are, are brand new.
So we have to make sure that we're focusing on onboarding and retention at
this time. Now, another thing that we have to work at,
which goes hand in hand with, you know, employee engagement,
staff satisfaction and retaining is our ED capacity.
So Jackson North, and, and I think most hospitals, um,
are facing the same thing. 'cause I,
I talk to all the executives and I hear that they're having the same things
where they're seeing their ed now, patients are coming back to the hospital,
so they're faced with high capacity. Right?
So that's one of the things that we're facing in my facility right now as we
emerge for the hospital of choice, I think is,
is critical as the nurse executive leader to make sure
that we are providing safe,
effective care while maximizing throughput and operational and efficiency,
the overcrowding of the ER as a,
as a merge and is a pressing concern for me as the nurse,
the C N O at Jackson North. Um,
this is compromised in patient care and it places strain on our staff as well.
So that goes hand in hand why I need to focus on that.
And if you think about it, it's the two important things in the,
in our healthcare,
the patients and the staff patient and people,
we must focus on these and these,
both of these priority will give us the leverage we need to ensure that our
staff are not feeling burned out, there's no strain.
So they can provide that excellent care to our patients,
and our patients can leave to say that we receive high quality
safe care when we came to Jackson North Hospital.
That's amazing to hear. You know what, I,
I really love that focus on the people side of it,
whether it's your teammates or the patients and,
and their families that you're working with.
It's so important healthcare to have that kind of personal relationship and
really understand what people need on a human level. And, you know,
when you talk about that and then coupled with, um, I just,
I so appreciate you weaving in there too. Um,
the very tactical aspects of making sure that, you know,
you're dealing with some of the emergency department issues,
patient flow capacity, those are so, such big challenges, um,
within the healthcare space today. Um, so, you know,
it's just fascinating to hear how you're tackling those and troubleshooting some
of those issues. I'm wondering, you know, kind of given where we're at today,
how do you see the organization evolving over the next two to three years or so?
What do you see as being, um, areas where you'll improve on, in what is, um,
on deck for, for your, I guess, key priorities next?
Well, I, you know, as we evolve in the next two to three years, and as we know,
um, the increased cost due to inflation, new technology coming out,
we wanna increase our technology to allow better patient safety and throughput.
We also know that that may cause some delays as well with some of the workforce
who are not tech savvy. So those are some of the things we're thinking about.
So I think as we, we, we look to the future in the next two years,
we will need to be doing some constant review of patients cost and
physicians to make sure the patients are informed and moving through the system
quickly in order for hospitals to be profitable due to the change in
environment.
We have an increased amount of patients due to age and the overall expectation,
and rightly so, when a patient comes to the hospital,
they should receive topnotch care. I, as the C N O,
when I go to a facility, I expect the best technology,
the best patient care. I wanna be moved through safely and efficiently.
I don't wanna stay three, four days in a hospital bed where I can become,
get hospital acquired infection when I can really move to the f the,
the system efficiently. So I think as an organization,
we need to do look at that.
So that's where we're gonna focus on how we're moving our patients
through the system effectively,
to be that hospital of choice where we provide safe care and our employees
want to be a part of something that's so, so exciting.
Absolutely. And, and I, I,
I think that's such an important aspect of healthcare.
I love your passion around that.
I can certainly hear it in your voice and to your point on how you can, um,
inspire families and patients to really understand and see what you're doing,
uh, to improve and get better. Obviously, having the best technology,
the best teams in place and the best opportunities for patient care is just, um,
just an amazing mission.
And for those who maybe might not be as tech savvy or might be a little bit, um,
anxious or nervous, you know, or,
or not really understanding why it's so important to,
for the hospital and the health system to, um, you know,
leverage these technologies and,
and move a little bit quicker than you have in the past,
bring patients through or otherwise. Um,
how do you kind of approach those challenges both with the staff members who
are, um, skeptical as well as patients?
Well, I think we have to do a lot of education.
It starts first with our frontline staff, right?
Educating them on the whys,
not just we're going to use this,
but we have to let them understand why we're using it and what is the end
result, what does it look like?
How is it gonna make your job more effective,
where you can move along safer and efficiently.
And then after the staff understands they can speak to that
with our patients, right?
Because they're the ones who are delivering the care at the bedside.
So I think we have to do a lot of, um,
education and more education until our staff are able to
be able to be proficient. It's, I think if you think back when, uh,
when we came out with the electionary health record, it's no different.
It's something that every one of us had to learn. Me as a nurse,
I remember I was a part of the team that rolled out the E H R in
my organization, and I was a staff nurse at that time,
and I knew there was challenges with it,
but we overcame those challenges and look where we are today.
So I think if we look at the ai, the technologies that are coming out, yes,
we know that there's gonna be challenges, um, with those who are not as savvy,
including myself, however,
we know that it's going to make it better for our staff and for our patient.
And that's my focus patients and our, and our staff members.
Amazing. I I love it. Thank you so much for the insight there. Now,
before we wrap up our conversation,
I was wondering if you could talk about a change that you or your team has made
that really yielded great results recently?
Yes, Laura, I would like to talk a little bit about one of the,
the program that we initiative that we did at Jackson North.
So again,
I go back to the pandemic where we saw an increased, um,
surge of, um, HX Hospital acquired infection.
So since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, the prevalence of, um,
hospital acquired M R S A in our tele unit was in, was increasing significantly.
And as a nurse leader,
that became a very concerning point for me and for my team as well.
So we had a group of us that we decided how we're going to make an
impact to really, um, put, um,
insulate different things to really get this under, um, control.
So we decided to, to, uh,
enroll in our program with the A H R Q,
the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on their Mesa safety program.
And we started that program in 2021, uh,
of the last quarter of our fiscal year.
And we saw a significant decrease in our mesa bacteremia
in our telemetry unit, and not just in the tele unit,
but across the entire facility.
So we had monthly webinars where we had our infection prevention, um,
director, myself as a team lead. We had physician partnership,
nursing leaders. Uh, it was a whole, uh,
group of collaboration to really get this to where we have reached
the, the, the ss i r that we wanted to be.
So we're very proud of that. That included our safety fair.
We started the quarter where we were having up to 10 uhms
a bacteremia hospital acquired that that year.
And I'm proud to say in 2023,
we only had one M R S A in our hospital.
So we're very proud of that.
Wow, that's amazing. What great results and,
and certainly something to be really proud of with your team, um,
is is that something you've celebrated getting those great results?
Absolutely. We celebrated, we had a banner, we had a party.
Um, we made a big deal about it.
That's one thing we focus a lot on at Jackson North. We do a lot of, um,
employee celebration because we want our staff to know that we
pre appreciate them, we're happy for the work that they're doing,
and no one can impact the, the, the patient experience better than our staff.
So with all of that, the staff, actually, I'm glad you asked that question,
Laura, because I didn't mention it,
but the staff was a big part of this because they all had to
watch the safety, the signs of safety video, and they took this on,
they had champions, we made posters. So the staff really,
really, we, the leaders met in the boardroom, but at the frontline,
the staff were the leaders at the bedside. So we're very proud of them. And yes,
we did a big celebration for them and we continue to cheer them on
and celebrate as they continue with zero M r s a, uh,
infection in that unit.
I love it. Peter Ann, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
This has been a really fun and interesting discussion,
and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
Thank you, Laura. It was a pleasure sharing.
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