Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Cynthia Whitaker, VP of Operations & Chief Nursing Officer at Guthrie Corning Hospital

Transcript

Cynthia Whitaker, VP of Operations & Chief Nursing Officer at Guthrie Corning Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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  by the team of Becker's Healthcare,
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  Thanks for listening. Now here's the episode.
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  - Welcome everyone,
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  to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
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  I'm Ra Mohammed, writer
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  and moderator with Becker's Healthcare,
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  and I'm absolutely thrilled to have with me today.
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  Cynthia Whitaker, vice President of Operations
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  and Chief Nursing Officer at Gut three Corning Hospital.
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  Cynthia, it's very nice
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  to have you on the podcast today. How are you?
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  - I'm great, thank you, Mariah.
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  I am honored to be here today.
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  - Yeah. So glad to have you, um, too, get us started.
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  Would you mind please just introducing yourself
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  and telling us a bit about your background?
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  - Sure. Um, so I'm Cindy Whitaker.
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  I have been the Chief nursing officer
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  for Corning Hospital since 2020.
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  I actually started my career with Guthrie, uh, 12 years ago
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  as a brand new nurse in the ICU at one
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  of our sister hospitals, uh, Robert Packer Hospital.
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  And back then, you know, I never really had a clear idea of
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  what my career path was going to look like,
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  and I loved critical care nursing.
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  So during that time, I really thought I'm,
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  I'm gonna be a critical care nurse for my whole career.
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  It was, it was truly a passion.
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  Um, but I kind of found myself in the role
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  of charge nurse in the ICU.
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  And after doing that for, you know, over a year,
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  the staff would would say to me,
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  you know, you're really good at this.
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  You should, you should think about, you know,
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  being the manager one day.
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  You know, we really like it when you're here and,
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  and you keep things controlled and you're calm.
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  And you know, back then I was like, yeah, you know,
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  whatever, this is great, but I'm,
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  I'm gonna be a critical care nurse, you know, forever
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  because I love this so much.
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  And actually, uh,
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  Guthrie restructured their nursing leadership about a few
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  years after I was in the ICU
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  and a position came up for an assistant manager on one
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  of the trauma med surg units.
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  And I thought, Hmm,
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  this is an opportunity I never really thought about
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  for myself, but I had some life changes.
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  I had just had, um, my first, my first child
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  and the 12 hour shifts weren't working great for us anymore.
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  So I thought, you know, let me give this a try
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  and, you know, I went for it.
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  And, and I got the position.
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  And after being in that position for six months,
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  I was actually promoted to the manager of that unit, uh,
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  because, you know, I was so successful
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  with forming relationships with the staff,
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  improving engagement and staff satisfaction.
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  Um, after doing that for about a year, they decided
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  to give me another unit.
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  So I had a total of 60 med surg, uh, beds.
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  And I had an assistant manager
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  and an educator that worked with me.
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  And we were very successful as a team, again,
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  improving staff engagement
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  and patient outcomes, um, throughput.
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  Uh, we did, we did very well.
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  And when the chief nurse position came open at Corning
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  Hospital, which is a smaller hospital compared to
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  where I was at, I thought, you know, I never thought
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  of myself as being a chief nurse,
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  but this is an opportunity that's coming at the right time
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  and I think I'm gonna go for it.
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  And they took a chance on me
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  and I started in this job, you know, right.
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  Kind of in the middle of the pandemic.
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  And it was stressful and we struggled a bit,
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  and I've learned so much.
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  But it has been, um, it's been a wild ride.
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  It's been a very successful ride.
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  And in April of this year, Guthrie decided
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  to do some restructuring
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  and they joined their VP of operations
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  with the chief nurse role.
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  And I was, I was awarded that role at Corning.
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  And, you know, it has, it has been great so far,
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  learning more of the operation side, how, you know, EVS,
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  food and nutrition rehab, all those services fit in
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  with nursing operations.
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  Uh, it makes sense.
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  And, uh, it, yeah, like I said, it's, it's going very well.
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  And right now in my career, I'm just open to seeing
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  what opportunities continue to come along for me.
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  - Yeah, absolutely. Well,
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  congratulations on all your success.
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  I'm sure you have worked very hard to achieve all of it.
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  Um, for the next question I wanted to ask you is,
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  can you tell me about your most successful project
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  or initiative from the last year?
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  What issues were you trying to solve?
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  And also what drove the success?
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  - Yeah, so I think during the pandemic, um, you know,
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  hospitals came across a lot of challenges
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  that maybe they didn't face, uh, prior.
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  And one of the things that,
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  that happened here at Corning was an increase, a major
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  increase in hospital acquired infections, especially during,
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  uh, the year E 2022.
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  That's really when the region that
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  that we're in upstate New York started
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  to see a rise in the covid positive patients.
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  Now, Corning Hospital is a 65 bed community hospital,
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  and one thing we saw
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  through the pandemic is an increase in acuity.
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  You know, we got sicker patients, patients
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  that we were unable to transfer out
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  because their, the bed availability
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  wasn't there in the community.
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  So we had to, you know, adapt and be flexible
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  and bring more resources in to, to care for these patients.
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  But with sicker patients, along comes with the chance of
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  more hospital acquired infections, more falls, you know,
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  it really impacts your quality outcomes.
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  So during 2022, we saw a major rise in our ,
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  our C diff and our CLABSI rates,
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  and just not something that we ever really had to deal with.
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  We, we never really had a lot of patients
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  with Foley catheters or central lines.
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  So I did some research
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  and I thought about how can we,
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  how can we handle this differently than we used to?
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  We, we need more awareness around
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  hospital acquired infections and
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  around the lines that we have here.
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  So in March of 2022, I started, um,
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  something called a daily device huddle.
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  And what we do in this is, is each morning our nurse leaders
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  have a safety huddle on their unit where they talk
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  with their staff, the frontline nurses,
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  which patients have a central line,
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  which patients have a Foley catheter,
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  and which patients, um, may have AAC diff order
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  that we still haven't collected.
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  And they talk about why is the line in,
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  when can it come out,
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  what are the barriers to it coming out?
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  Are there alternative devices
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  that we can use external catheters so we can,
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  we can get these out earlier.
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  And then they come to this device huddle.
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  And what's unique about device huddle is the presence
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  of the executive leadership team.
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  So I'm there, our president
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  of the hospital attends our chief medical officer,
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  our infection preventionist, and the nurse managers come
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  and they report out on, you know,
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  I have a Foley in this room.
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  It's in because of this, it's gonna come out on this day
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  or it can't come out because,
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  and we have conversation, we ask questions.
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  And when there's barriers presented, that's where
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  as the executive leadership team,
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  we can help remove those barriers.
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  So for example, you know, maybe we have a catheter that,
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  from the nursing's point of view,
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  it can come out the patient's ready, um,
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  but maybe the provider is not there yet.
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  They say, no, I wanna keep it another day or two.
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  That's where myself or my partner, my chief medical officer,
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  we can step in and just have a conversation
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  with the provider of, you know, what's in the,
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  what's in the best interest of the patient.
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  Um, so long story short,
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  we are now over a year later,
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  and we have been successful in reducing all cau, clabsi
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  and c diff rates to less than one.
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  And when we talk about an n you know, the number,
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  so in the past year
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  and a half, we've had one CAU in one c diff.
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  And what's unique about this is it actually has, uh, been
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  spread out to our other five
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  or four sister hospitals throughout Guthrie,
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  and they have all been able
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  to maintain their hospital acquired infection rates
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  to less than one as well.
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  And not only has this, you know, driven improved outcomes
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  for our patient, 'cause that's what it's about.
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  We want our patients to know
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  that they're safe when they come to get care here.
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  We've also really shifted our culture of safety.
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  We've empowered our caregivers to say, um,
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  you know, I need help.
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  I need to escalate this
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  and, um, have ownership over these lines.
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  These are really, you know,
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  nursing driven quality indicators, nurses drive
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  decreasing these hospital acquired infections
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  and getting these lines out.
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  Um, so I think, you know, that really has been my,
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  my most successful project over the past year.
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  And we continue to, to maintain that success.
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  And we've also seen, you know,
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  a shift in our engagement scores and our,
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  and our satisfaction scores along with, you know, improved,
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  um, culture of safety.
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  - Wonderful. Thank you so much
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  for giving us all that insight.
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  Um, the clinical workforce has changed a lot in the last few
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  years, as I'm sure you are well aware.
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  What challenges are you still facing
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  and how do you see the clinical workforce evolving?
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  - Yeah, I think this is a, there,
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  there's a lot to this question.
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  So, um, the clinical workforce changes daily, monthly.
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  I think one thing we can't deny is there are not enough
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  caregivers to care for the number of patients.
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  And, you know, specifically speaking in my, in my area,
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  you know, the biggest focus is on,
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  on having enough registered nurses.
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  Um, so I think that we as uh, nursing leadership
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  and hospital leadership in general, we have
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  to start thinking differently about how we're gonna care
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  for patients and how we're gonna continue to give quality
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  of care, um, than we, you know, differently than we used to.
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  One of the things that we're doing here
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  and throughout the Guthrie system is changing to a,
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  a team nursing model.
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  So this was a model that was, you know,
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  dumb back in the eighties,
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  but we're kind of bringing it
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  back, but doing it differently.
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  And what it really involves, it involves bringing RNs
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  and LPNs and care partners together
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  and bringing LPNs back into inpatient care when, you know,
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  a few years ago when we did primary nursing,
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  they were pushed back out to the clinics.
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  So we're bringing them back into inpatient care
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  and we put 'em in a team format.
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  So you've got an rn, an LPN,
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  and a care partner taking care of a group of patients.
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  What this allows us to do is really increase the number
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  of hands available to care for patients,
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  and it allows each individual to work at the top
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  of their license, um,
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  and allows the RN to delegate appropriately.
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  And it allows increased amount
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  of time at the bedside with the patient.
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  And I think, you know, we've done this on our nursing units
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  and we've been successful
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  and we've been able to improve outcomes,
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  but I can see how it applies to other areas as well.
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  So I think as leaders, we're gonna have to continue
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  to be proactive about areas where there are going
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  to be shortages such as, uh, respiratory therapy, um,
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  physical therapy, ot,
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  and then how can we be creative with those care models
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  so we can continue again
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  to provide high quality care to patients.
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  You know, we look at respiratory therapists,
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  so maybe we need to add some more techs
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  or to the respiratory therapy team, you know,
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  and have RT techs that can break down equipment
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  or put equipment together, clean equipment, um, so
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  that our respiratory therapists can work more at the top
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  of their license, um,
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  and handle the patient care that they need to handle.
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  And it's always gonna be different upon in each region,
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  you know, what, what your shortage is.
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  But I think that it's really about being ahead
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  of what's happening in the workforce
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  and being proactive about how are we going to
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  be ready to face this so that our patients don't feel
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  any difference in, in, in their care,
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  that they're getting the quality
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  of care that we've always given.
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  So I just, I wanted to mention as well, um,
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  virtual virtual care, virtual care is still up and coming
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  and, and it's expanding.
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  Um, but I think this is gonna continue
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  to be very important in the inpatient world
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  and using our technology to provide virtual support.
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  So we're talking about virtual sitters, um, telemetry techs,
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  virtual ICU nurses, virtual med surg nurses, people
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  that can provide extra support, uh, to the inpatient staff
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  that are hands-on and support in the way
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  that they can do documentation.
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  You know, when, when here at Guthrie we look at
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  how many hours a day a nurse spends just documenting,
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  it's really quite, it, it opens your eyes, right?
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  And we need people to be able to,
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  at the bedside providing physical care to patients.
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  And that's one thing we've already started
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  doing here at Guthrie.
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  So we actually have virtual ICU nurses
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  and virtual med surg nurses, um,
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  and they can pop right in through cameras
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  and patients' rooms and they can document turns
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  and they can document admissions
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  and discharges, they can talk with families.
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  Um, and this is also huge
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  because it provides a support, especially
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  to our newly licensed nurses just coming out of school.
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  You know, that's where our biggest pipeline
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  of new nurses is coming anymore is,
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  is our new grads every year.
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  And having these experienced nurses virtually
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  where they can just ask them questions
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  or they can pop in, you know, through cameras in the rooms
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  and help help these nurses, um, I think that's gonna be huge
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  for recruitment and retention.
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  And I, you know, I'm really proud to say
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  that Guthrie is ahead of the game in this area.
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  - Yeah, it certainly sounds like it.
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  So thank you so much for sharing all that insight.
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  And before I let you go, the last thing I wanted
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  to ask you is, what is your best advice
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  for aspiring physician nurse leaders?
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  - So, my best advice,
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  and I think what has gotten me, um,
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  the farthest in my career is to be authentic.
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  Be you know, your values and stay true to them.
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  And when you are an authentic leader, it is, it makes it
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  that much easier to make real connections with people.
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  And I have found that ha relation, my relationships
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  with others has really, uh, helped me in inspiring
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  change and, um, moving initiatives forward.
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  And I think another really important component is practicing
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  self-awareness, knowing yourself
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  and recognizing when you're wrong
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  and being, being okay with admitting that.
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  One of my mentors, I think, um, one of her greatest pieces
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  of advice to me was, you know, the, the two best attributes
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  that a leader can have is humility and vulnerability.
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  Um, because when the people you work with can, can see
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  that you are human too, and you make mistakes
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  and you can admit it, you know that that goes a long way
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  with people and really valuing yourself,
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  taking breaks when you need it, right?
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  The pandemic taught us anything.
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  It taught us that, uh, healthcare workers in general, we,
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  we burn out easily and we need to be aware of that.
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  And then lastly, you know, network
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  and take advantage of opportunities when they come along.
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  Um, I think that, you know, during my career,
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  things have come along and they felt right at the right time
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  and I was able to take advantage of that.
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  And, um, you know, we should,
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  we should always have our eyes open
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  and be ready for the next thing.
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  - Yes, I completely agree.
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  Thank you so much for those final thoughts.
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  This has been an amazing and informative discussion.
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  So again, I wanna thank you so much
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  for coming on Becker's Healthcare.
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  We really do appreciate it,
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  and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
• 16:30
  - Thank you. And again, I really appreciate the opportunity.
• 16:33
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• 16:37
  of organizations to keep learning, stay sharp,
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