Featured Guest Contributor
A Message from Chief Nursing Officer Dale Beatty, DNP, RN
Photo: Dale Beatty, DNP, RN, Chief Nursing Officer, Stanford Health Care
“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.”– William Jennings Bryan
My academic background includes a Bachelor’s, Masters and a Doctorate in Nursing from Ohio Wesleyan University, DePaul University and the University of Illinois – Chicago respectively. My career spans over 30 years with experiences in both academic and community health systems. Most of my career experiences were realized at Northwestern Medicine and the University of Illinois, both of which are academic health systems located in Chicago.
As a Nursing Magnet designated organization through the American Nurses Credentialing Center, SHC nursing services is recognized nationally for excellence in nursing and patient care outcomes. As a result, we will continue our journey towards patient care excellence with a focus on integrating clinical practice/quality, education and research.
Listed here is a high-level update on our ongoing inter-professional improvement efforts.
Practice and Quality
There have been a number of unit-level improvement and innovation successes.
- C.Diff – The Clinical Nurse Specialist safety champion and physician partner developed a best practice alert for nurses to send in a stool sample to capture community-acquired infections.
- CAUTI – E2 ICU is targeting early catheter removal to prevent Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI). Results: 37 percent reduction (CY2017 Q1-Q2)
- HAPI – E29 ICU launched daily skin rounds with a Wound and Ostomy Certfied Nurse (WOCN) Manager and early implementation of prevention measures. Results: 51 percent reduction (CY2017 Q1-Q2)
- CLABSI – F Ground standardized dressing changes, and implemented Chlorhexidine Gluconate Antiseptic (CHG) bathing. Results: 29 percent reduction in Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection (CY2017 Q1-Q2)
- Collaborate with Office of Research to conduct a randomized controlled trial, evaluating the efficacy of the Leaf wearable device to measure changes in position and turning efficacy in the prevention of Hospital Acquired Pressure Injury (HAPI); and a study of sub-epidermal Moisture Scanner to improve early detection of HAPI.
Education
The Center for Education and Professional Development (CEPD) has created new partnerships with the School of Medicine and staff from other disciplines such as rehab therapy and respiratory therapy to create an inter-professional education environment that supports everyone. To that end, there have been three major domains that we have been working in:
- Academic Partnerships – CEPD works with 73 local and online universities to provide clinical and non-clinical (e.g., MBA, MHA) placements for interdisciplinary staff. We are also working with the School of Medicine Practice of Medicine course to offer medical student shadowing experiences with interdisciplinary staff. CEPD has met with Dr. Charles Prober, Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education, to identify projects that promote interdisciplinary learning and research.
- Professional Development Activities – CEPD is now partnering with the Stanford Center for Continuing Medical Education (SCCME) to offer nursing continuing education units jointly on two courses hosted by SCCME.
- Staff Development Activities – The Acuity Adaptable Unit (AAU) conversion has enhanced nursing practice to be able to take care of medical/surgical as well as intermediate ICU level patients housed on the same unit. This will lead to fewer transfers and hand-overs of patients among units to decrease the possibility of hand-off errors and increase patient and provider satisfaction.
Research
The Office of Research, Patient Care Services is making steady progress in partnering with our School of Medicine colleagues to implement and grow our culture of research at SHC.
- From 2016 to now, the Office has assisted School of Medicine faculty with 59 clinical research and other clinical and translational projects. These consist of Phase I, II and III drug trials, medical device trials, as well as implementation and patient-orientated research and quality improvement projects.
- We are working on building communication around clinical research with the launch of DISCOVERY, a newsletter from the Office aimed at introducing SHC staff to the wider research enterprise at Stanford. We have reached out to Spectrum and Stanford Center for Clinical Research to co-create content.
- Finally, in line with our shared goal of developing interdisciplinary research and improving clinical outcomes and care delivery, the Office is partnering with staff to undertake clinical research and improvement studies in areas such as HAPI, falls, SSI, and CAUTI – as well as securing funding to develop the first post-doctoral fellowship in nursing, in collaboration with Dr. Karl Lorenz and the Palliative care team.
Patient Care Services is committed to high-level clinical practice, education and research at SHC and we will continue to partner with the faculty in the School of Medicine to achieve excellence in patient-family centered care delivery.