Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Strengthening Nursing Leadership Through System Thinking and Prioritization with Joy White

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Strengthening Nursing Leadership Through System Thinking and Prioritization with Joy White · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  - At Insight Global Health, we are dedicated to
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  - helping you and improving health care for everyone.
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  - delivering them. Visit us at insightglobal.com.
• 0:26
  - Hi, everyone. This is Liz Cassello with Becker's,
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  - and welcome to our podcast.
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  - I'm thrilled today to be joined by Joy
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  - White, vice president and chief nursing officer at
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  - Legacy Health Good Samaritan Medical Center. Joy, thank
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  - you so much for joining us. Absolutely. It's
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  - my pleasure to be here this afternoon. Yeah.
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  - So tell us a little bit about your
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  - role. Sure. So as you mentioned, I'm Doctor.
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  - Joy White. I'm the vice president and chief
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  - nurse officer at Legacy
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  - Health Good Samaritan Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.
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  - I oversee inpatient operations, perioperative services, and clinical
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  - support services.
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  - And so that includes imaging,
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  - food and nutrition, environmental services, facilities,
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  - and a patient's,
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  - safety and security.
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  - I'm a wife. I'm a mother.
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  - Let's see. What else? If I wasn't in
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  - nursing, this is just a fun fact,
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  - I'd be selling real estate. Oh, that's fun.
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  - I love selling sunset. Big fan.
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  - So what's top of mind for you right
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  - now? Yeah. Top of mind in our world,
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  - I've kinda put it in three buckets,
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  - access,
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  - excellence, and sustainability.
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  - So access about,
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  - is all about reducing friction for our patients,
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  - ensuring they can move through our system without
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  - difficulty and efficiently,
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  - excellence in our commitment to delivering patient centered
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  - care, high quality care, safe care,
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  - keeping the safety of our employees, and then
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  - sustainability,
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  - really designing a health care system and models
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  - and workloads
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  - that our teams can maintain over time. So
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  - these are the priorities and areas that I'm
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  - really focused in, making sure that they're deeply
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  - interconnected. They shape how we approach our operations,
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  - our workforce,
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  - our care delivery.
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  - Yeah. In a nutshell, that's where I am.
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  - So I would love to hear what is
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  - a recent decision or pivot you had to
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  - make that required a lot of conviction from
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  - you, and,
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  - you know, how did that challenge your assumptions
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  - as well with decision making? Such a great
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  - question, Elizabeth. Really great question. I think one
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  - of the key focus areas this year has
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  - really been the intentionality
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  - with leveling up our nursing leaders
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  - to think,
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  - act, and operate more strategically.
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  - You know,
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  - gone are the days of we can solely
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  - focus on nursing
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  - and all things nursing.
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  - I've got this,
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  - this saying that I want you to look
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  - left, look right, look up, and look down.
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  - Who are all the stakeholders that impact nursing
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  - and the work we're doing?
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  - Because in a very complex matrix
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  - organization,
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  - we've got to think outside outside of nursing.
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  - We've gotta think about every single
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  - stakeholder, whether that is physical therapy, our physicians,
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  - food and nutrition. And so this wasn't just
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  - development. This was a capability shift,
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  - enabling nurses and giving them the capability to
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  - think beyond nursing. Right?
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  - And so that's been a huge pivot, huge
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  - shift, and huge focus area for me.
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  - So I also wanted to hear about some
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  - of the forces you think are reshaping health
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  - care right now, and where do leaders need
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  - to be putting more of their attention?
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  - Yeah. I think it's in this place of
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  - system thinking. You know, I'm gonna kinda pull
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  - the thread on that same theme.
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  - It is in the area of system thinking,
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  - change management. We're in a rapidly changing environment
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  - with the introduction of technology.
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  - We are five generations in health care right
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  - now. And so how do you develop
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  - work processes and flows,
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  - education
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  - that speaks to all generations,
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  - right,
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  - and creates an environment where everyone feels seen,
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  - heard, and is able to thrive, quality is
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  - maintained,
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  - efficiencies are maintained, burdens are reduced in terms
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  - of our workload.
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  - And so I would say
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  - doing that system thinking and how do we
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  - design multi generationally.
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  - So I would also love to hear what
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  - is a leadership habit of yours,
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  - that has been grounding you and also keeping
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  - your organization and people
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  - propelling forward? Yeah. Such another great question. I
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  - would say ruthless prioritization.
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  - It is a habit. I've gotta keep the
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  - main thing the main thing.
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  - Everything can't be most important
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  - because if everything is important, nothing is. And
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  - so we are not,
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  - you know, I it's that old saying, jack
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  - of all trade, master of none. We don't
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  - finish anything because we've got 32 priorities or
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  - 32 projects underway. And so a habit of
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  - mine is really assessing what's most important? What
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  - should I be focused on? How do I
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  - prioritize my day? What are the two or
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  - three things that are gonna be the highest
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  - priority for the day? And focus on those.
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  - I would add to that, celebrate the win.
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  - So at the end of the day, did
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  - I accomplish the things I set out to?
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  - And if for some reason I was derailed
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  - from that, what did I accomplish? What can
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  - I celebrate? And just having that mindful and
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  - thankful moment, that gratitude moment at the end
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  - of the day.
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  - I need to embrace that myself for sure.
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  - So pivoting a little bit, thinking about evolving
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  - workforce expectations.
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  - There have been expectations around flexibility, purpose, and
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  - mobility.
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  - So how is that influencing your role design,
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  - schedules, and care teams?
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  - Yeah. So, you know, I think about
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  - everybody's been talking about scheduling and staffing. We've
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  - been super fortunate, I would say. Oregon,
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  - if you extract the cost of living, has
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  - really moved up
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  - very quickly in terms of, if not the
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  - highest paid in the top three, highest paid
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  - states in The United States. And so we've
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  - seen less of a challenge with our recruitment
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  - and hiring efforts because of that. We pay
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  - a a very good wage in that area,
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  - and the cost of living is is not
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  - too high.
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  - So we are learning from the workforce and
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  - it's really, really clear that they wanna be
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  - seen, heard, and connected to purpose. And so
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  - when we think about what, like, retention and
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  - maintaining staff and how we continue to attract
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  - and retain, it's really been around that. It's
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  - creating the conditions where people wanna grow, they
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  - wanna stay, they wanna contribute, and that's been
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  - our retention strategy. And so we've anchored that
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  - work in a couple of key areas. One,
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  - human centered leadership,
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  - which we've trained all of our leaders in
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  - human centered leadership, which means start with self.
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  - Human centered leaders starts with the leader themselves,
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  - and how they care for themselves. Because guess
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  - what? If leadership looks, a hot mess and
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  - people look burnt out,
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  - that's not something that nurses are gonna aspire
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  - to be or to do. So we focused
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  - on human centered leadership, also stress first aid
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  - for our teams.
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  - We've really leaned in. As you know, it's
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  - super controversial right now with diversity, equity, inclusion,
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  - and belonging. We've doubled down. So we've doubled
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  - down on our efforts, in that space. And,
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  - again, I think it's this return to being
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  - more intentional
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  - and hospital based with our orientation. We moved
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  - to a system orientation, which is great.
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  - You get more people in a lot faster
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  - from across the organization.
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  - In February, we re reinstituted,
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  - our hospital based orientation because we wanna bring
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  - it back to home. Right?
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  - And so that's another way that we've really
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  - paid attention,
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  - to belonging,
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  - for the folks that we're recruiting and retaining.
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  - Well, thank you so much for giving a
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  - little bit of depth on that, and we're
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  - really excited to have you at the event.
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  - Awesome. Thanks so much, Elizabeth. This has been
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  - great. Of course. And to our listeners, if
• 7:25
  - you're interested in listening to more podcasts, you
• 7:28
  - can visit beckershospitalreview.com.
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  - Thank you, and have a good one.