Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Brenda Rocha, Chief Nursing Officer at Baystate Medical Center

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Brenda Rocha, Chief Nursing Officer at Baystate Medical Center · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  This is where health care leadership comes together.
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  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
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  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
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  speakers to Chicago, April 13 through the sixteenth.
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  This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
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  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
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  w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
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  visit beckershospitalreview.com
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  and click on the events tab in the
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  upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
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  in Chicago.
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  This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
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  podcast, and we are recording live at the
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  thirteenth annual CEO and CFO roundtable.
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  I'm currently joined by Brenda Rocha, who is
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  the chief nursing officer at Baystate Medical Center.
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  So, Brenda, thanks for being here. And I'm
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  gonna have you start off just by telling
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  us a little bit more about yourself and
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  your background.
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  Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
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  Yes. So I have been in health care
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  for twenty six years.
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  I'm happy to, and excited and very honored
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  to have been part of the profession for
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  that long. I as you as you mentioned,
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  I am, the chief nursing officer at Baystate
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  Medical Center, which is part of the larger
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  organization, which is Baystate Health System.
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  I started my career as an ED nurse
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  way back in the day and had the
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  great opportunity of having a lot of great
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  mentors. But throughout my career, I have been,
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  in academia. I've taught in
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  several universities. I've also been a nurse practitioner
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  and, most recently now the chief chief nurse
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  officer.
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  Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the time
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  to be here. And let's start our conversation
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  talking about
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  growth strategy. So I'd love to know more
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  about your growth strategy specifically over the next
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  year or two. Thank you for the question.
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  I think that's a great question.
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  Currently, Baystate Health is going through a a
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  transformational journey. So there's a lot of great
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  changes happening, great work happening. And to align
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  with that great work, you know, we wanted
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  to really focus on some of the challenges
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  that health care itself is having, and that
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  being, you know, the workforce
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  of the workforce shortages,
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  retention, recruitment, and burnout.
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  So what a better way to align ourselves
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  with an evidence based program, which is not
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  new to anyone, but it's the the nurse
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  healthy environment program.
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  It's a great program, and we've started that
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  initiative, and that's gonna take us over the
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  for the course of years, one to two
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  years to be able to kind of fully
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  embrace it. But one of the things that
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  in mind that we did, we wanted to
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  set some goals for this program and align
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  with what we wanted the outcome to be.
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  One was to really enhance the work environment,
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  two, to reduce,
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  burnout,
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  to enhance,
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  retention, and also patient care.
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  And tell us about the most exciting and
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  impactful initiative or project that you're currently working
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  on. Well, that kinda likes an extension to
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  the one I just said because right now,
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  in fact, to be to be honest with
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  you, we started in March already. We started
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  this initiative, and it's just amazing. And I'm
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  pretty excited about it because we were able
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  to meet with over 700 nurses across the
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  system.
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  So to hear
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  the feedback and such the dialogue
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  is very empowering. So I was really happy
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  to have such engagement over the all the
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  systems. So the CNOs and I got together,
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  and we were able to really get all
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  that feedback. And we took that feedback and
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  make themes out of them, and we were
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  able to put them into buckets and create
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  work groups, and the work
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  continues. So we're really hoping,
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  that we're gonna have some really great success
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  with it. So far, so good. And and
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  we're just happy that we're gonna be able
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  to start addressing some of those issues that
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  we've that I spoke of earlier.
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  And what is the most important thing that
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  you think health care executives should be doing
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  right now to make sure their organizations are
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  successful for the future?
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  Well, I think we need to continue to
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  be innovative,
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  and also invest in technology enhancements. I think
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  that is so important because what what that
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  will do, it'll only,
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  make our workflows for clinicians more efficient.
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  And in the long run, it will provide
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  better outcomes for our patients.
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  Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining
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  me today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. Again,
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  we are recording live at the thirteenth annual
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  CEO and CFO roundtable.
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  Thank you.