(upbeat music) - Recently my colleague, Mary Gamba and I, had a conversation with Trish O'Keefe, Senior Vice President and Chief Nurse Executive, Atlantic Health System, and President of Morristown Medical Center about nursing.

Trisha's a nurse by background.

About the healthcare system.

About wellness in the healthcare system.

Whole range of issues about healthcare today.

Check it out.

- Good to see you too, Steve.

- For our audience, describe Atlantic Health.

- Sure.

Atlantic Health System is made up of six different hospitals, ambulatory centers, urgent care centers, a very large Atlantic medical group, and serving at least 11 counties in New Jersey, if not beyond.

- Trish by way of background, we've talked to you before, you come out of the nursing field, correct?

- That's right.

- Do you find that more and more nurse professionals are moving into executive roles in the healthcare world?

- Yeah, most definitely Steve and have seen it during my career as well too.

You know, from a nursing perspective, you do have a reference in regards to patient care, patient experience, what the needs are of patients, of the community as well too.

And we've really created a network in New Jersey, those that are nurses and our presidents of hospitals.

A couple of us actually went to school together at Seton Hall for our cohort, for our PhD.

We stay very close and support each other and talk about initiatives and work through initiatives at the state level as well as regionally.

So now excited about the advancement in nursing in an executive field.

- As Mary jumps in, lemme also disclose that Atlantic Health is one of our underwriters that supports our healthcare programming.

Please, Mary.

- Sure, and I would love to talk just a little bit about the state of nursing today.

I know we're now, I can't believe it, four years I guess into the pandemic, out of the pandemic.

And there was a lot of talk for some time about the physician leader, the physician shortage, the nursing shortage.

Where are we today in real time and where do you see the state of nursing in particular in the upcoming months ahead?

- Sure, definitely Mary, we definitely know nursing was not immune to the great resignation right, during the very challenging pandemic.

People retired earlier, people had opportunities to go elsewhere within the country, right?

Their partners or loved ones were able to go down south and not staying in New Jersey.

But we also saw, and very similar to when we've had other crises in the country and in New Jersey like 9/11, like after Sandy, people really want to get involved in caring for the community.

So we've seen a great interest in people wanting to go into nursing, whether it's initial career, whether it's second career, but definitely our challenges right now, similar to hospital settings that our faculty also retired.

So thinking about the pipeline going into our academic centers have been challenged by taking X amount of new students because of the limited availability of faculty.

So we've had some opportunity to work very closely with our schools of nursing in the area and looking at joint appointments from our nursing staff.

Those very seasoned, educated, practicing nurses also interested in going part-time as faculty.

So working on expanding additional adjunct faculty to increase the pipeline for nursing right now.

So some exciting times there as well and balancing all we're balancing at this point.

- But, you know, Trish, opportunities, but interesting challenges in this way too.

So I think a lot about, Mary and I, and we do a lot of leadership coaching with physicians.

We do some nurse leadership, nursing leadership as well.

But one of the things I've heard from the nurses that I've coached over the years in my other life as a coach in the field is the stress, is the pressure, is a whole range of issues.

Dare I ask about, and you help us understand, not just nurses caring for others, nurses caring for themselves, nurse wellness.

Is there such a thing?

- Yeah, you know, Atlantic Health, and I know many systems across the state and nationally have really focused on the wellbeing of a nurse.

You know, how do we support them with work-life balance.

Exactly what you're saying, Steve.

So we as medical centers and as systems need to make sure that we offer that.

We offer flexibility of work schedules, flexibility of how they want to continue in their professional career.

We know working at the bedside can be mentally challenging, but also physically challenging.

So we've been looking at developing new types of roles.

Virtual nursing is a great example.

What virtual nursing is is a nurse working closely with the patients when they come into the hospital.

As we know, documentation can be very burdensome to the practicing nurse.

So how do we divide that type of workload?

Nurses not having to be right at the bedside, but working closely and doing an admission of a new patient or developing a discharge process for that patient when they're going home.

So we need to look at new types of roles for nurses, right?

Again, it's not always just at the bedside.

So to allow that work life balance.

And also from a scheduling perspective.

We have weekend programs, night programs.

Our schedules are two hour, four hour shifts, whatever works for the nurse so they're able to balance their wellbeing and their families as well too.

They have a lot of responsibility, particularly women in the healthcare field.

- My last question is this, it's really about coaching and mentoring.

Steve and I talk about the importance of bringing up future leaders and coaching and mentoring.

In your opinion, how has that changed or evolved over the past few decades, right?

I've seen myself, I'm gonna be 50 very soon, and I've seen how I coach and mentor has changed dramatically.

I would just love to hear your perspective on what more can and should our leaders of today be doing to coach and mentor our up and coming leaders, whether nurse leaders or staff or physicians.

- Sure Mary, you know, it's that creating, creating that environment of support, whether it's formal mentorship, informal mentorship as well too, really sitting down with that mentor.

What are their plans professionally?

How do we advance them?

How do we circle, you know, our organizations about that advancement for them?

You know, we also know that over the past four years that our new nurses that are coming out had very limited clinical experience, right?

Rightfully so because we weren't allowing people in the hospitals.

So we know they were book smart, educated well, but the clinical experience was different.

So we have been creating residency programs, additional mentorship programs, much longer than we used to in the past, over a year plus.

But making sure that they have a voice in telling us what their needs are and we need to respond as an industry and as a system.

- Trish, thank you for all the work that you and your colleagues are doing, and to the doctors, the physicians, the nurses, all the other clinicians and administrators and folks in the healthcare world.

We say thank you.

You're still heroes to us.

Trish O'Keefe, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

Stay with us folks.

We'll be right back.

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