Last month, we hosted our first session in our new series of PRC Roundtables. The intention behind Roundtables was to provide a new learning platform among healthcare professionals to combine best practices with an opportunity for networking. Over a hundred healthcare leaders from our esteemed client partners joined our inaugural Roundtable event, leading to an hour of meaningful dialogue and support for all attendees.
In this Roundtable discussion, we focused on strategies for cultivating meaningful engagement within care teams, both internal and agency staff, amid the high-stress environment of today’s healthcare landscape. The session, titled “Teaming in the ‘New Normal,’” was led by both PRC leaders and our Healthcare Experience Foundation (HXF) partners, with an opportunity for attendees to receive one PXE credit for participation and a downloadable journal designed specifically for Roundtable notetaking. A key component of these sessions is the opportunity for networking with fellow attendees, so throughout the session, attendees were split into virtual breakout rooms to discuss session topics with each other.
Following an introductory breakout segment to orient attendees, PRC Excellence Accelerator® Coach Kathleen Lynam shared insight about today’s nursing landscape, referring to it as the “Great Compression.” Lynam discussed the high turnover rates currently seen among nurses, with common reasons for leaving including insufficient pay and burnout accentuated by the pandemic. These high turnover rates have also led to a stronger prevalence of hiring agency staff to fill new vacancies, opening the door to new challenges for hospital leaders. These challenges include the orientation of agency staff, their integration among existing staff, and the varying engagement levels as a result. This led into a breakout segment for attendees to share their experiences with agency staff, along with innovations and strategies they implement to support morale within their care teams. Upon the segment’s conclusion, members of select breakout rooms were encouraged to share practices and strategies discussed in their rooms, including the importance of leadership visibility, organizing morale-boosting events for staff, and sharing patient testimonies of excellent care experiences.
The session transitioned to more high-level best practice discussions for teaming. To start, Lynam encouraged attendees to remember the essentials for healthy teams—trust, communication, competency, and respect—from which all non-negotiables and strategies are built from. Given the greater prevalence of agency staff and new hires amid turnover, Lynam shared strategies for re-examining and revamping procedures for orientation and onboarding. To support engagement, Lynam discussed the need for hospital leaders to understand where care team members find joy in their job, inviting attendees to start these conversations with their staff and physicians so they can sustain these instances of joy. Finally, in response to the heightened emotional toll on healthcare workers seen throughout the pandemic, Lynam offered the concept of “Code Breathe.” This initiative offers a space for care personnel to take a minute, relieve stress, and most importantly, breathe. A final debrief followed which brought “Teaming in a ‘New Normal’” to its conclusion.
We, at PRC, are grateful for everyone’s graceful participation as we kicked off our PRC Roundtables. As the first of hopefully many Roundtable sessions, we’re taking feedback from the session to tweak the framework towards the best possible learning and networking experience for our partners. Visit our Roundtables page to learn more and register for our next Roundtable session, “Raising the Bar: Restoring a Culture of Civility” on Tuesday, June 21, and reach out today for further information.