- This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Robert Rose,
market Chief Nurse Executive at Atrium Health.
Robert, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- Thank you. Happy to be here.
- Now, I'm looking forward to learning more about
what you're doing at Atrium
and how you're really tackling some
of the big challenges in healthcare today.
But before we dive into my questions,
can you tell us a little bit more
about yourself and your background?
- Sure. Uh, I, as you mentioned, I'm the chief nurse
for our Atrium Health, what we call our central market,
which is the Charlotte Downtown campuses, uh, made up
of our flagship medical center, Carolina's Medical Center,
as well as our children's hospital
and one of our community hospital.
It's called Mercy Hospital.
And our clinics and our, um, oncology service line
and have been in healthcare.
I'm a nurse by background, have been a nurse
for a little over 30 years, so a long time.
I've seen a lot of evolution in healthcare
and have been in leadership for probably 20 of those years.
Uh, so great to be here
and to chat with you about what we're seeing at the national
and the local level as well.
- That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much again,
Robert, and let's dive right in.
What are some of the biggest issues
that you're focusing on in healthcare right now?
- Well, there is a lot of issues, as you know,
but I think I, I sort of call it our, my three Ws,
our workforce, our wellbeing of our workforce, and,
and then our, uh, workplace violence.
I think those are sort
of the three things that bubble up to the top.
Uh, there's many more, and they're all important,
but I think from my focus,
those are the two things I'm most
passionate about wellbeing.
We've done a lot in that space, both at Atrium Health
and Advocate Health now.
And, uh, excited to see where we continue to go
to support the wellbeing of our clinicians.
- Well, that's great to hear. And, you know,
could you tell me, or,
or dig a little bit deeper into something
that you do on the wellbeing side that you know,
might be interesting or unique, um, to
what you're doing at Atrium or advocate,
or anything that you've tried new over the last year?
I'd just love to hear what that means to you
and, um, how it really shows up, um,
within the clinical teams.
- Yeah, that's great. So in 2020, we actually were one
of the first to, um, produce research, uh, um,
during the first wave of covid, uh, uh, a study that we did.
And we published this study nationally about
what our clinicians felt during the COVID Pandemic.
And one of the things that certainly came up, obviously
changing protocols, staffing, all
of those other things did come up,
but one of the things that showed up is, um,
psychological safety.
And when we started looking more into that, we certainly saw
a drift of where our clinicians and,
and in my, in my space nurses
and primarily that, you know,
they were really having trouble.
I mean, if you think about just all the things
that were going on during the pandemic, not only were they,
you know, fearful at work, they had their home
to balance families to balance.
Um, as we continued to get more comfortable taking care
of patients during, uh, COVID, it started
to shift a little bit from more of a fear
to really feeling like burnt out, you know,
and, um, our workforces started to have a lot of challenges
as we started losing nurses.
And so really that sort of, um, for me sparked,
it ignited me to really think more about wellbeing.
Um, we've always done a lot in that space.
We have a wonderful pastoral care, um, department
that did a lot with it, like our code lavender
and, um, support of that.
And that was all done pre covid,
but we knew we needed to step it up a little bit more.
We did some things that other healthcare systems have done.
We get, we, um, gave our nurse managers, um, you know, we,
we brought them to a four day work week, um, uh, you know,
during that time just to give them
a little bit work life balance.
Um, and, you know, we did some other things
to support our leaders wellbeing,
but we really wanted to get to the clinician level.
So we brought in, um, a wellbeing coaching program,
and we're on our fourth cohort.
And what's really excited about that is when we survey the,
um, cohorts, each cohort, the, um, the questions, uh,
related to wellbeing, re resilience
and, uh, burnout, they all have measurable differences from
pre-intervention to post-intervention.
And the exciting thing about that is we're really looking to
embed a wellbeing sort of champion on each
of our nursing units.
Um, somebody that could really work with the team to,
you know, wellbeing's a continuum.
There's poor wellbeing and there's good wellbeing.
And we really wanted to make sure that we, um,
have resources for the clinicians
and the nursing staff to be able to really, um, balance that
and have sort of a, a positive outlook on things
and have a resource, uh, that they can go to.
We do have a very strong EAP, um,
but we do know that nationally, uh,
EAP services are only sort of, um, used about 35%, uh,
of the time nationally, and you have to go to them.
And so what we really wanted to design is a model
where there is somebody at the unit level appear,
a colleague that the nurses can go to, to learn really about
how to balance, how to have a, a better outlook, how
to improve their wellbeing.
And so we've really been trying to spread this model
and it's been really, really exciting work for us.
We also have a peer-to-peer support, uh,
that started in our children's hospital.
And we, um, are also spreading this work
where we're able to train people.
It's a six hour course.
Um, and again, it's another way for people
to have a resource in their units, um, to go to, to be able
to have some support from a psycho,
from a psychological wellbeing perspective.
So those are just a couple of the things that we're doing.
There's many, many more.
Uh, but, uh, those are the things
that I'm really most passionate about
and excited about to really be
able to support our workforce.
- I love it. I, I think it's so important, as you mentioned,
to have that kind of support
and really that the whole team knows, you know,
you, um, have their back.
And that psychological safety too, um,
makes a really big difference in terms
of your experience in the workplace, as well as ability
to have the flexibility to innovate
and really do some cool things for patients.
So that's really great to hear.
Thank you for sharing with us.
- Yeah, and then we, we try to keep ourselves whole, meaning
that we really want to make sure that we continue to,
to have a flavor of the month
and that we're, that we're sustaining the results.
So we do have a very, uh, committed wellbeing committee, uh,
made up of, uh, uh, staff, nurses
and others throughout the area that, um,
we get together monthly and we go over our programs,
we go over our results, uh,
we make sure we have people in the right places.
So we really try to take a strategic, um, viewpoint, uh, uh,
approach to this so that we're able
to really sustain the program.
'cause as, you know, things happen
and some things go by the wayside,
so we really wanna make sure that we,
that this is important.
- Absolutely. That makes a ton of sense and,
and really is helpful to elevate
and keep in that elevated position.
Now, when you look ahead,
what are you most excited about and what makes you nervous?
So
- I think from, you know, one of the things
that I'm excited about is really transforming healthcare.
You know, if, if we learned anything, uh,
we were just talking about this
before we got on, if we learned anything during,
during the pandemic, is that, you know, there is a lot
of things that we, um, do virtually,
which when you think about it saves us time
and saves us energy, um, it's more efficient.
Um, you know, but at the same time, we know that we have
to transform healthcare in a big way.
And so while I think that's exciting, it's also nervous
because we're going into uncharted territories,
and we do, I do know that, you know,
technology is gonna continue to be with us.
And so for somebody
that's been in the healthcare a long time
and probably spent most of their bedside nursing practice
with paper and pencil, um, we certainly, for me anyway, uh,
the comfort level on using
technology and getting used to it.
But this is something that we do know that, uh,
the new gener, you know,
the generation in the workforce is
something that they're comfortable with.
So we really need to do that.
If you think about acute care hospitals, we sort
of do the same thing we've been doing for the,
since I was at the bedside, you know,
not a whole lot has changed.
And so we really need to use that now.
We brought, we've brought in a lot of technology.
Our electronic medical record is, is superior.
We do a lot of things with that,
but we know we need to do things with, um,
artificial intelligence and other things to really start
to transform the, the work environment.
So it's exciting, but I think it's a little scary too,
- That that makes a lot of sense.
And certainly the technology component of it
and throwing artificial intelligence in there, you know,
it's almost like the wild, wild west in some ways of trying
to figure out how really to harness the, the power
of these types of technologies
and innovations, um, will also be extremely mindful of,
you know, the real world consequences that they can have,
um, if something isn't done correctly.
So it's just, it's been fascinating to watch.
- Exactly. - Now, you know, in looking at
how much healthcare has changed,
and I know you've had some really great experiences both on
the clinical side as well as in leadership.
I'm wondering, you know, what do you think will be the most
effective way that healthcare leaders will need to grow
and evolve in order to be successful in the next
two to three years or so?
- Yeah, great question.
You know, I think, I think we've always,
I think strong leaders
and leaders that sort of stand out, you know, sort
of stand out are ones that are adaptable.
And I think that's probably has not changed.
But I think that adaptability also now comes
with a strong sense of innovation.
For instance, at Advocate Health, we are, um,
putting our nurse managers through an innovation academy.
So we know that our nurse manager, the frontline to a lot
of our nursing teams, right?
They're the ones that do the hiring.
They're the ones that see that the,
that the nurse nursing teams see every day.
We want to be able to give them flexibility
and also excitement in their role.
So I think when you think about innovation, we're trying
to change them, um,
and give them the tools to be able
to be innovative at the front line,
because innovation sort of is a big word.
And when you think about innovation, you sort
of think big things, but there are small things
that I think our nurse managers are certainly capable
of doing that's in their hands.
So that's one of the things that we're doing.
So I think from a leadership perspective, it's
that adaptability with the innovation, you know, being able
to drive improvements in patient care,
operational efficiency and healthcare delivery models.
But, you know, using technology, technological approaches
to be able to do that, which I think is something
different than in the past.
Um, the other thing is we certainly want to use data, um,
and make decisions based on data.
And now with our electronic health records in,
in healthcare anyway, there's a lot
of more data at our fingertips.
For example, we, uh, we implemented a protocol, uh, uh,
technology with our, uh, false program.
We're able to get really discreet data that we're able
to see, um, a lot more about what happens
to our patients when they fall, meaning not what happens
to them physically,
but like the time of day, what would the staffing look like?
So really discrete data so that we're able
to make those improvements.
So I think that is another sort of comes together.
And then lastly, I would say that isn't necessarily new,
but I think it's certainly something
that we have paid a lot more attention with at Atrium Health
as our diversity, equity, inclusion,
and really making sure that we have, uh,
that we have leaders
and teammates that look like our communities,
and that we make sure
that we have accessible healthcare for all.
Um, you know, I love, uh, atrium Health's Mission,
health Hope and Healing for all
because, uh, our doors are open for everyone,
but we do know that there's health disparities depending on
where you live, what zip code you live in, and,
and you know that, you see the national data on that.
And we really gotta be able to, to, uh, um, you know,
do something with that and be able to, um,
meet the patients where they are.
And I think that's something that I'm really excited about
that at Advocate, that we really do, we do innovative things
to really reach out to our communities
and be able to, um,
give them accessible healthcare when they need it.
- That's amazing to hear. Robert, thank you so much
for joining us on the podcast today.
This has been a fascinating conversation.
I, I've learned a lot from talking to you
and really seems like you've got, uh,
fun things going on there, um, atrium and,
and certainly I love the idea
of having all the new nurse managers going
through innovation training
and really making that part of their role, part
of their mindset, and part of what it means
to be a nurse manager, um, you know,
in going throughout the organization.
So that's just fascinating
and I love the idea of bringing all of that into, um,
building a better, um, and,
and more sustainable health system
in the future. Thank you.
- Well, you're very welcome. And I'm, I'm glad
that we're able to connect and thanks for your questions.
Really excited about where healthcare is going,
but we do have a lot of hard work,
and I appreciate that Becker's is always there to inform us
and to help, uh, promote a lot
of the things that we're working on.
- Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Robert.
Look forward to having you back on the
podcast sometime again soon.
- Look forward to it. Thank you so much.
- It's so important for leaders at the top of organizations
to keep learning, stay sharp, grow their networks,
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