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This is the Becker's Healthcare Podcast,

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created by the team of
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a multimedia company devoted to
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Thanks for listening.
Now here's the episode.

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Welcome everyone, to the Becker's
Healthcare podcast series.

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I am Mariah Mohammed, writer and
moderator with Becker's Healthcare,

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and I'm absolutely thrilled to
have with me today Lee Montgomery,

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chief Nursing Officer at uc, Davis
Rehabilitation Hospital. Lee,

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it's very nice to have you on
the podcast today. How are you?

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Good. I'm good. Thanks
for asking. How are you?

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Good. Thank you for asking as
well. Uh, and to get us started,

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would you mind please introducing
yourself and telling us a bit about your

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background?

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Sure, sure thing. Yeah.
I'm Lee Montgomery, um,

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and currently the Chief Nursing Officer
for uc, Davis Rehabilitation Hospital.

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Um, I'm a nurse by
background, of course, um,

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and been in healthcare for about 20 years.

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Wonderful. Well, with your
20 years of experience,

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the la the first thing I
actually wanted to ask you is,

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can you tell us about your most successful
project or initiative from the last

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year? Uh, what issues you were trying
to solve and what drove the success?

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Yeah, that's a really good
question. So, um, like I said,

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I'm currently the Chief
nursing officer for, uh, uc,

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Davis Rehabilitation Hospital. So we're
a brand new facility in, uh, Sacramento,

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California. And what I'm most interested,

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or surpri I'm excited about is we
just opened the facility and we, um,

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had a, an acute rehab unit in a
r u over at the medical center.

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And then as we opened a
new hospital that worked,

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shifted over to our brand new facility,

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so had the opportunity to
open the hospital as the
chief nursing officer and be

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able to support the nurses as they
moved over to our brand new facility.

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So really excited about that. I think
what really sticks out in my mind as a,

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as a leader is being able to set the
tone, especially when it comes to the, uh,

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the culture, uh, for the new
facility is what I'm most proud of.

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Absolutely. What a great
accomplishment. And as you know,

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the clinical workforce has changed
a lot in the last few years. Um,

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what challenges are you still facing and
how do you see the clinical workforce

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evolving?

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Yeah, that's a good question. It really
has changed with the pandemic and, um,

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it's been some learnings, um, um,
just overall in healthcare and, uh,

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specifically in nursing.

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A couple things that have into my mind
is some challenges that we had to work

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through. Um, especially, you know, my,

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my counterparts and
other nursing colleagues.

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What I hear out there is that
there's definitely been a change, um,

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with the level of commitment
from the workforce.

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So there's just so many different
opportunities out there to travel to get

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involved in whatever clinical area,
uh, clinicians are interested in.

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And so just the level of commitment has
been really hard to hone down on, uh,

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with their workforce. And so, um,

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really looking at what are the
drivers for our clinicians to be, uh,

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staying in their role and how can we
keep them committed and engaged, um,

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into the work that they're doing
has really been a challenge.

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I've been really fortunate since we've
been open for the last six months, uh,

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you know, we had a very low turnover,
so it's not something that we're seeing,

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but we're always keeping our
finger on the pulse of, you know,

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how committed are our staff, what drives
them to come to work every single day,

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and, um, how can we keep their
commitment? And the other, uh,

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issue that we face is with the
travelers, uh, in the workforce.

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And so again, that, you know,
sometimes travelers, they're,

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they're really not committed
to, um, especially the,

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the quality of work
that sometime has done.

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And so that can be a challenge when
you're really trying to drive the culture

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for high excellence and commit
to high quality, uh, care. Um,

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sometimes when you have
intermittent workforce involved, uh,

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can be a real challenge.

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Yeah, absolutely. I completely
understand. And Lee, before I let you go,

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the last thing I wanted to ask you is
what is your best advice for aspiring, uh,

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physicians and nursing leaders?

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Yeah, that's a good question.

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I think the best advice I would say is
really do what you're passionate about.

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Find out what really, you know, what,

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what do you wake up in the morning
and you're excited about, um, doing,

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whether that be, um, a, a particular
clinical area or if it's, uh,

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coaching or mentoring others. Um, if
it's educating others, really, you know,

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get behind what, what drives
your passion, you know,

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what are you passionate about?

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The other thing I would say is really
important is mentorship. You know,

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find some strong mentors, um,
maybe within your organization or,

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and even external out in the community
that can really give you advice and coach

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you along the way and help and
support you as you, uh, you know,

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you're gonna make, uh, decisions
that may not be, uh, the best,

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but someone who can really
support and guide you and get,

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and give you that guidance, uh,
that I've been very fortunate, uh,

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for in my career. Um,

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and then I think the other thing I would
say is to make sure that you have a

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roadmap, uh, to where you want to go.

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And so that can look like looking out and,

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and forecasting in the next 10,
20 years, where do you want to be?

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And then drawing out or mapping out
a, a road to how you get there. Um,

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you know,

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I've been very fortunate to have some
great mentors along the way that have

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coached and supported me and
giving me guidance and, you know,

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supported me when I made some,

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some great decisions and were definitely
my cheerleaders. And then were also,

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um, willing to pick me up when I
didn't make some, some, some, uh,

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some the best decisions I would say,

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but they just really allowed for me to
bounce different ideas off of them and,

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um, you know, just be really
good thought partners with me.

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Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree,
especially with the mentorship. Um,

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well thank you so much for
those final thoughts, Lee.

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This has been an amazing
discussion. So again,

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I would like to thank you very much for
coming on Becker's Healthcare and I look

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forward to connecting with you again soon.

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Sounds good. Thank you so much, Mariah.

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Thank you.

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