East Alabama Medical Center has a strong mission statement \u2013 Deliver high\u00a0quality, compassionate healthcare. EAMC knows that to do this, they need to\u00a0keep a strong pipeline of nurses and first-level supervisory nurse leaders, a\u00a0familiar concept to EAMC. Being a quality hospital in a smaller market, EAMC\u00a0has a longstanding tradition of growing their own to carry out the organization\u2019s\u00a0mission statement. In fact, a V.P. started as an orderly 34 years ago, proof that\u00a0senior leadership has walked the walk.<\/p>\n

While several programs were in place to retain professional positions, growth\u00a0opportunities were needed for nurses to continue growing internal talent.\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of competition in this region for employees, so we started to look\u00a0at how to better retain talent at EAMC,\u201d said Karen Gresham, RN, Director of\u00a0Education Services.<\/p>\n

EAMC had offered Catalyst Learning\u2019s School at Work since 2005, a career development\u00a0program for entry-level healthcare associates, to help employees advance within the\u00a0organization through clinical or administrative positions. Given their success with School at\u00a0Work, EAMC turned to Catalyst Learning for a solution. EAMC adopted NCharge\u00ae: \u201cNurses\u00a0Learning to Lead\u201d, a program in line with its leadership development and succession planning\u00a0goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just loved the program [NCharge] right away. It spoke to me as a nurse,\u201d said Rosemary\u00a0Cummings, Director of Medical Surgical Services. \u201cWhen I started as a labor and delivery\u00a0nurse, I was put in charge after being on the floor for three months or so. If I\u2019d had some of\u00a0this info, I could have done more with that position. So, I understood what we were lacking,\u00a0not having anything for those supervisors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recognizing the importance of having experience in a nurse leadership role, EAMC decided\u00a0to have nurse managers like Cummings deliver the NCharge content. Each nurse manager\u00a0is paired with an educator who can help deliver the curriculum. The feedback has been\u00a0overwhelmingly\u00a0 positive.<\/p>\n

As with School at Work, the success of NCharge is dependent on buy-in from managers and\u00a0their willingness to allow frontline staff time away from their regular duties to complete the\u00a0program. Once managers learned the objectives and how a leadership program developed\u00a0specifically for nurses could make a difference, they were on board. This year, EAMC will\u00a0also offer NCharge to managers to give them a firsthand understanding of what NCharge\u00a0participants are learning.<\/p>\n

EAMC is focused on results and a return on their investment. Two groups of 20 nurses have\u00a0gone through the program and checkpoints are now in place to see if the nurses are using\u00a0the skills they are learning.<\/p>\n

Managers are seeing improved engagement and confidence among nurses and a positive\u00a0change in communication with physicians and other employees. One participant shared\u00a0with Cummings that she uses different parts of NCharge every day, for example finance and\u00a0value-based purchasing skills that are typically learned on the job. Two nurses who have\u00a0completed the program have been promoted to managers.<\/p>\n

EAMC\u2019s long-term goal for its nurse leadership development program is sustainability.\u00a0Cummings and other instructors are planning lunch-and-learns with the two groups who\u00a0have gone through NCharge to discuss how they are leveraging their new skills and which\u00a0tools are most effective. The lunches will also be an opportunity for participants who formed\u00a0a bond completing the program together to reconnect.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not part of a big organization, but we offer quality healthcare here. We take a lot\u00a0of pride in how we do things from a quality and cost perspective,\u201d said Cummings. \u201cIt helps\u00a0our frontline supervisors to see we\u2019re investing in them. Development at this organization\u00a0is an important piece of who we are. I think that\u2019s why people stay. This is in line with our\u00a0leadership development goals, and NCharge is now in our hospital\u2019s official succession plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

East Alabama Medical Center has a strong mission statement \u2013 Deliver high\u00a0quality, compassionate healthcare. EAMC knows that to do this, they need to\u00a0keep a strong pipeline of nurses and first-level supervisory nurse leaders, a\u00a0familiar concept to EAMC. Being a quality hospital in a smaller market, EAMC\u00a0has a longstanding tradition of growing their own to carry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer-case-studies-nursing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.bch.agency\/catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}