Today was one of those days when I had to be in three places at once — leading nurses at the hospital, teaching a nurse aide course at the college, and learning healthcare governance at the board of directors retreat (hosted at my church).
And at the end of the day, when my husband called the bar, they recognized his voice and put in The Rachael Special.
Today was one of those days when I fell deeper in love with my work and my town.
shared tonight at our Board of Directors meeting…
Soon after arriving to Homer, I set about the task of learning and memorizing South Peninsula Hospital’s core values. I felt overwhelmed by the cross-country move, but there was something comforting and grounding about aligning my daily practice to my new organization’s mission. Two years later, I still try to view and direct my work through the lens of our values. And so with that, I’d like to give you a glimpse into what I see each day, moments when our values shine brightly.
COMPASSION – Rhoda Ostman, Nutrition Services Manager, has been quietly having lunch with one of our beloved volunteers each day, ensuring that he has what he needs, both here and at home.
RESPECT – We relaxed our masking protocol earlier this week, and staff have been engaging in kind and thoughtful dialogue regarding. It’s been quite an emotional journey to reflect on how far we’ve come since March of 2020.
TRUST – Christine Anderson and Clay Eagerton, Informatics Nurses, set us up for a successful electronic medical record downtime last night. They rounded in all involved departments, often more than once, to answer questions and ensure staff felt ready and supported prior to the event.
TEAMWORK – For the last two weeks, our community’s needs have seemingly outpaced and outnumbered available staff and beds, but over the weekend, we reached a critical need. Within hours, half a dozen non-clinical staff, ranging from Human Resources to Billing to Security, showed up to help where they could. These people literally got our nursing staff through the night.
COMMITMENT – Peggy Frazier, Acute Care/ICU Coordinator, worked with staff from multiple departments to devise a plan for keeping a married couple together throughout their hospital stay. She refused to sacrifice their social and emotional needs while we cared for them medically. The couple was able to safely stay in one room together thanks to her creativity.
These examples are merely from the last week. These moments are why the staff show up each day, to promote community health and wellness with personalized and high-quality care. It’s my honor to celebrate them publicly when I see them. Thank you.
I sat with my team until well after end of day, agonizing and arguing and arranging just the right way to announce it to our hospital – we are relaxing masking restrictions in light of the CDC/CMS guidance released last week. It took us a long time to get here, and the truth is there is no such thing as just the right way. South Peninsula will be the first hospital in Alaska to set foot on uncharted territory. The first, on the last frontier, to attempt a normalization of that which can never be normal again. We will never be pre-pandemic, but we can take a step toward whole, and whole faces are a great start. At 5:48pm, the All Staff email is sent. Let’s do this.
The healthcare industry is facing unprecedented challenges. Now, more than ever, we need support. We are sick of words like unprecedented and phrases like now, more than ever.
Nationwide, the healthcare sector has experienced a workforce loss of close to 25% during a pandemic which is not over. More than 50% of the workforce that remains is considering its exit strategy.
As a nurse, I will speak to what I know.
Nationwide, nurses are tired of working under crippling, unreasonable state and federal regulations. They are tired of being assaulted at work by patients, families, and coworkers. They are tired of going twelve hours without water, food, or bathroom breaks. They are tired of being asked by society to be an insufficient and ineffective band-aid for a healthcare system whose infrastructure has been broken for decades and crumbling for years.
Seasoned nurses are retiring a decade sooner than anticipated, and new nurses are the most likely to leave the profession. Even if there were enough nursing programs out there (there are not) to produce an overwhelming crop of fresh and eager talent, the need for experienced nurses is statistically critical, exponentially greater than any solution presented thus far. Time and experience are the greatest teachers, and we’ve run out of both.
These are the darkest days I’ve seen in my career.
And so I will continue to go to work each day, fighting for a better future for nurses and the way we deliver healthcare. My weapons are transparency, creativity, tenacity, and hope. Because hope is a strategy some days, especially on the darkest ones.
I drove to Girdwood for a conference today, and the fall foliage moved me to happy tears more than once. Alaska is bigger and more expansively beautiful than can possibly be described or photographed. But still we try.
It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to a book in a day. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked in the yard by myself. Check, check. Feels good.
September is sepsis awareness month, a time for me to talk until I’m blue in the face about deadly infections that sneak into all sorts of bodies right in front of us in the hospital, deadly infections that take our friends and family and total strangers, deadly infections that often start out looking like nothing more than a subtle shift in blood pressure. September is a time for me to call to arms the power of knowledge and timing and a sharp eye. September is a time for me to wage war on a scourge that simply ought not be.