Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Karen Uttaro, Senior Director of the Professional Practice, Quality, and Regulatory Departments at UMass Memorial Medical Center

Transcript

Karen Uttaro, Senior Director of the Professional Practice, Quality, and Regulatory Departments at UMass Memorial Medical Center · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome everyone to the Becker Health care podcast
• 0:02
  series. I'm am Mariah Muhammad, writer and moderator
• 0:05
  with Becker Healthcare care, and I'm thrilled to
• 0:06
  have with me today Karen Utah, Senior Director
• 0:09
  of the professional practice, quality and regulatory Department
• 0:12
  of Nursing at the uma Mass Memorial Medical
• 0:15
  Center. Karen is very nice to have you
• 0:16
  on the podcast today, to get a started
• 0:18
  would you mind, please introducing yourself and telling
• 0:20
  us a bit about your background.
• 0:22
  Absolutely. And thank you so much, Mariah for
• 0:24
  this opportune,
• 0:26
  I am Karen Utah, and in my senior
• 0:29
  director role here at the Medical Center.
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  I have the opportunity to collaborate with many
• 0:35
  nurses and inter professional colleagues to really drive
• 0:38
  exceptional practice. And just to give you a
• 0:41
  little background on my journey, I have had
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  the fortune to spend my entire career here
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  at uma Mas Memorial Medical Center. I actually
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  started as a a Pc here many moons
• 0:52
  ago and have worked my way up and
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  reinvented myself. And I think that's really what
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  the joy of nursing is all about is
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  that, you know, you grow and learn and
• 1:01
  have that commitment to life, long learning. So
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  I was at the bedside as a critical
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  care and acute care nurse and then had
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  an inkling that education was my passion and
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  went to,
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  get my masters with a focus in advanced
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  practice
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  education and worked in
• 1:20
  development for a number of years, became director
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  of that
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  department. And then during the pandemic, there was
• 1:26
  this role became available, and I was tapped
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  to lead this work. So for the last
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  4 years, I've been working as the senior
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  director.
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  Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you so much for giving
• 1:40
  us that that background on your experience. So
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  was everything going on nowadays
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  in everything that you're doing within the organization,
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  what are are the biggest issues you're following
• 1:50
  health care in... For this year?
• 1:53
  Great question. So the greatest things that I'm
• 1:56
  following right now is really around caregiver engagement,
• 1:59
  and how that links to patient, safety and
• 2:02
  quality,
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  and really,
• 2:05
  leadership development because I think they're leaders
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  if they're developed and have the tools and
• 2:10
  sources, they can really foster that caregiver engagement,
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  which really ultimately drives quality and patient safety.
• 2:18
  So Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for giving
• 2:20
  us that insight. Is there anything that you
• 2:23
  are excited about or anything that is making
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  you nervous in regards to what you're seeing
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  on the news, anything you're hearing within health
• 2:30
  care or anything that you're working on?
• 2:33
  Absolutely. So I think when I'm most is...
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  Excited about is really the innovation and
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  collaboration that I see. Really across health systems
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  and our national organizations such as, you know,
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  the American, you know,
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  organization of nurse leaders,
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  the association of nurses and national development and
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  really seeing academic medical centers coming together to
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  really share
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  best practices,
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  so that others can learn and just not
• 3:02
  have groundhog day when we're doing the same
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  things over and over again. I would say
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  what makes me the most nervous
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  is really the complexities of health care.
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  Patients are sicker than they've ever been before.
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  And so really
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  driving our delivery model of care to address
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  those needs is really
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  concerning. I also worry about the resiliency of
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  what I they call human capital.
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  I think that is 1 of our most
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  precious resources is our caregivers,
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  and it's
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  because of the complexity, it is really challenging
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  out there on the units.
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  And lastly, I would say,
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  the production pressure and the peace,
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  really thinking about capacity constraints. You know, it's
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  not uncommon for us to have many borders
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  in our emergency departments, and we are using
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  care spaces that I never thought in my
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  career, we would, you know, have patients boarding
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  in. And so when I think about the
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  work that I do around professional practice and,
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  you know, our residency program, really, how do
• 4:05
  we
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  give our caregivers,
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  you know, the tools that they need to
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  address that pace
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  because it is exhausting.
• 4:14
  Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And Karen, thank you so
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  much for explaining that Before I let you
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  go The last thing I want to ask
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  you, what was the most effective health leaders
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  need in order to be successful in the
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  next 2 to 3 years that you think?
• 4:27
  Yep. That's a great question. I think the
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  first
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  foundation and really sort of the vision would
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  be that they have a commitment to developing
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  a healthy work culture. Right? I think that
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  is really
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  needs to be celebrated
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  and really worked on. Really, the first step
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  in that is really fostering
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  relationships with caregivers
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  because that trust
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  that comes from that relationship is really the
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  foundation of psychological safety,
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  which is paramount to really promote patient safety
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  for everyone. I think the second is really
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  shared decision making. Right? That is a really
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  important strategy to empower our frontline caregivers
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  to address and input when there's ethical concerns
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  that are going on or they have a
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  clinical practice challenge. And then, lastly, I'm a
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  big fan of, proactive
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  transformation, rather than reactive
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  transformation. So thinking about,
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  we are opening a new building to address
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  our capacity needs and really, an example of
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  it is that we are going to over
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  hire. Right, For our summer cohort to address
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  our hiring needs so that we have
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  you know, the most precious human capital to
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  care for our patients. So rather than waiting
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  and realizing that we need to hire expensive
• 5:44
  contract labor,
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  you know, we're doing,
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  our recruitment strategies now even though the building's
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  is not opening till January.
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  I'm most excited about the evolution of our
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  new Grad residency program that we have here
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  at the medical center that was created back
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  in 2007,
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  and
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  because of the commitment of our leadership
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  team here over the years.
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  We have really
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  successfully seen that through national accreditation through the
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  Pt tap program.
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  And have 1 of the strongest retention rates
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  that we've, you know, ever had and is
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  compared to, you know, our national average. So
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  here at the medical center our 1 year
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  retention rate hover between 90 and 95 percent
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  in comparison to the national average, which is
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  hovering around 70
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  turnover with at the 1 year, Mark, and
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  really,
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  the commitment of our organization to
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  you know, fund and support this program. We
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  know that new grads need
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  support as they transition to practice.
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  And that has been validated in many periodic
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  and evidence based practice.
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  And so this program
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  really gives the new novice nurses, the
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  support that they need to safely
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  transition to practice this. It's a 1 year
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  program.
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  And what our new grads tell us is
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  that they can't imagine transitioning from academia without
• 7:12
  this program.
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  Got it. Got it. Thank you so much
• 7:15
  for sharing those final thoughts Karen. This has
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  definitely been in informative discussion. So, again, I
• 7:19
  wanna thank you so much for coming on
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  Becker Health care. When I look forward to
• 7:22
  connecting with you again soon.
• 7:24
  Alright. Thank you so much.