Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Lee Montgomery, Chief Nursing Officer at UC Davis Rehabilitation Hospital

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Lee Montgomery, Chief Nursing Officer at UC Davis Rehabilitation Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:04
  This is the Becker's Healthcare Podcast,
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  created by the team of Becker's Healthcare,
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  Four new 15 minute episodes are released daily containing industry news analysis
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  Thanks for listening. Now here's the episode.
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  Welcome everyone, to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
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  I am Mariah Mohammed, writer and moderator with Becker's Healthcare,
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  and I'm absolutely thrilled to have with me today Lee Montgomery,
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  chief Nursing Officer at uc, Davis Rehabilitation Hospital. Lee,
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  it's very nice to have you on the podcast today. How are you?
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  Good. I'm good. Thanks for asking. How are you?
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  Good. Thank you for asking as well. Uh, and to get us started,
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  would you mind please introducing yourself and telling us a bit about your
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  background?
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  Sure, sure thing. Yeah. I'm Lee Montgomery, um,
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  and currently the Chief Nursing Officer for uc, Davis Rehabilitation Hospital.
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  Um, I'm a nurse by background, of course, um,
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  and been in healthcare for about 20 years.
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  Wonderful. Well, with your 20 years of experience,
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  the la the first thing I actually wanted to ask you is,
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  can you tell us about your most successful project or initiative from the last
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  year? Uh, what issues you were trying to solve and what drove the success?
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  Yeah, that's a really good question. So, um, like I said,
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  I'm currently the Chief nursing officer for, uh, uc,
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  Davis Rehabilitation Hospital. So we're a brand new facility in, uh, Sacramento,
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  California. And what I'm most interested,
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  or surpri I'm excited about is we just opened the facility and we, um,
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  had a, an acute rehab unit in a r u over at the medical center.
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  And then as we opened a new hospital that worked,
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  shifted over to our brand new facility,
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  so had the opportunity to open the hospital as the chief nursing officer and be
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  able to support the nurses as they moved over to our brand new facility.
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  So really excited about that. I think what really sticks out in my mind as a,
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  as a leader is being able to set the tone, especially when it comes to the, uh,
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  the culture, uh, for the new facility is what I'm most proud of.
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  Absolutely. What a great accomplishment. And as you know,
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  the clinical workforce has changed a lot in the last few years. Um,
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  what challenges are you still facing and how do you see the clinical workforce
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  evolving?
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  Yeah, that's a good question. It really has changed with the pandemic and, um,
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  it's been some learnings, um, um, just overall in healthcare and, uh,
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  specifically in nursing.
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  A couple things that have into my mind is some challenges that we had to work
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  through. Um, especially, you know, my,
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  my counterparts and other nursing colleagues.
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  What I hear out there is that there's definitely been a change, um,
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  with the level of commitment from the workforce.
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  So there's just so many different opportunities out there to travel to get
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  involved in whatever clinical area, uh, clinicians are interested in.
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  And so just the level of commitment has been really hard to hone down on, uh,
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  with their workforce. And so, um,
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  really looking at what are the drivers for our clinicians to be, uh,
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  staying in their role and how can we keep them committed and engaged, um,
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  into the work that they're doing has really been a challenge.
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  I've been really fortunate since we've been open for the last six months, uh,
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  you know, we had a very low turnover, so it's not something that we're seeing,
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  but we're always keeping our finger on the pulse of, you know,
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  how committed are our staff, what drives them to come to work every single day,
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  and, um, how can we keep their commitment? And the other, uh,
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  issue that we face is with the travelers, uh, in the workforce.
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  And so again, that, you know, sometimes travelers, they're,
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  they're really not committed to, um, especially the,
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  the quality of work that sometime has done.
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  And so that can be a challenge when you're really trying to drive the culture
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  for high excellence and commit to high quality, uh, care. Um,
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  sometimes when you have intermittent workforce involved, uh,
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  can be a real challenge.
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  Yeah, absolutely. I completely understand. And Lee, before I let you go,
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  the last thing I wanted to ask you is what is your best advice for aspiring, uh,
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  physicians and nursing leaders?
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  Yeah, that's a good question.
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  I think the best advice I would say is really do what you're passionate about.
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  Find out what really, you know, what,
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  what do you wake up in the morning and you're excited about, um, doing,
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  whether that be, um, a, a particular clinical area or if it's, uh,
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  coaching or mentoring others. Um, if it's educating others, really, you know,
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  get behind what, what drives your passion, you know,
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  what are you passionate about?
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  The other thing I would say is really important is mentorship. You know,
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  find some strong mentors, um, maybe within your organization or,
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  and even external out in the community that can really give you advice and coach
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  you along the way and help and support you as you, uh, you know,
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  you're gonna make, uh, decisions that may not be, uh, the best,
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  but someone who can really support and guide you and get,
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  and give you that guidance, uh, that I've been very fortunate, uh,
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  for in my career. Um,
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  and then I think the other thing I would say is to make sure that you have a
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  roadmap, uh, to where you want to go.
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  And so that can look like looking out and,
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  and forecasting in the next 10, 20 years, where do you want to be?
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  And then drawing out or mapping out a, a road to how you get there. Um,
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  you know,
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  I've been very fortunate to have some great mentors along the way that have
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  coached and supported me and giving me guidance and, you know,
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  supported me when I made some,
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  some great decisions and were definitely my cheerleaders. And then were also,
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  um, willing to pick me up when I didn't make some, some, some, uh,
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  some the best decisions I would say,
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  but they just really allowed for me to bounce different ideas off of them and,
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  um, you know, just be really good thought partners with me.
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  Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree, especially with the mentorship. Um,
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  well thank you so much for those final thoughts, Lee.
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  This has been an amazing discussion. So again,
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  I would like to thank you very much for coming on Becker's Healthcare and I look
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  forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  Sounds good. Thank you so much, Mariah.
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  Thank you.
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