Nurses: They’re the beating heart of everything we do here at St. Tammany Health System, toiling away on the front lines to deliver the health system’s brand of world-class healthcare close to home for Northshore residents.
Recently, STHS Nursing Workforce Director Bronwyn Doyle visited the Lake 94.7-FM studios to talk with host Charles Dowdy about some of the things that make the health system is such a wonderful place to work – and about new initiatives to make it even better.
Listen in on their conversation in the embedded audio player below or at The Lake website. You can also scroll down for a transcript of their chat, which has been lightly edited for readability.
Charles: Tim is here with St. Tammany Health System. … (and) Bronwyn is back. So, when were you here last? When was that?
Bronwyn: It has been I guess November October.
Charles: And for the hospital what do you do?
Bronwyn: I am the director of nursing workforce, so I work on recruitment and retention of nurses.
Charles: All right. How we doing? We’ve talked to you guys a whole bunch over the last couple of years about this whole COVID thing. Nurses are obviously on the front line as far as dealing with this pandemic. How are we doing in terms of them holding up and staying the course?
Bronwyn: Well, just like everywhere across the country, there are certainly struggles. It is hard, hard work, but our nurses have a lot of support and so we have done a great job with retention and I think they’re holding in. We are waiting for this (omicron) peak to go down hopefully in the next couple of weeks so we can take another breath.
Charles: So things are going pretty well. Clearly you guys, as an institution, you have something to do with that -- supporting your employees and helping get them through this thing.
Bronwyn: Absolutely, they have done a lot of things over here at St. Tammany Health System. We’ve done things from bringing food to the nurses, right up to the nurse’s station so they can take a break. We have a Recharge Room, so if nurses just need to take a time out, they can go to the recharge room.
There is nice calming music going on.
Tim San Fillippo: There are snacks and there is even a guitar to play around with if you know how to strum a cord or two.
Charles: Well alright, that is kind of cool. That kind of came around because of this whole thing, right? I remember when that was a step that was taken.
Tim: Right, I think that was one of those first initial reactions that we had (to the pandemic). How do we make our colleagues feel appreciated? But also, realistically, just have a place to recharge. It first started off as just a hallway with just fresh clothes to change into and snacks. We really saw more of a permanent need and made a permanent space with, as Bronwyn said, the snacks, the guitars, and the music. It is open all day long.
Charles: I know you guys are always recruiting, right? So, if somebody is listening and they are working somewhere else, or maybe not working right this moment, are there opportunities with you guys?
Bronwyn: Oh, there are plenty of opportunities, and it is an exciting time really to be a nurse at St. Tammany Health System. We are working on a lot of initiatives to make nurses’ lives even better. We just rolled out a new salary and wage increase, so every nurse was touched with that, every RN. We have such a unique family and community culture at St. Tammany Health System. Generally, when nurses come in, they don’t want to leave. They are part of that unit, part of that division, and they feel connected. That is some good news for us.
We also have a lot of recruitment opportunities. Our RN’s, especially our new grads, have a tremendous opportunity because we offer an RN residency program. We do our residency program differently than other organizations. Certainly, there is some classroom time, where they spend time with our educators when they start with us. Then they are paired with a preceptor. What is unique about our program is those preceptors are pulled out of staffing, so the preceptor doesn’t have his or her own patients. The preceptor’s only responsibility is that new RN.
Charles: Alright, Tim doesn’t know what preceptor means.
Tim: No ma’am.
Charles: What is a preceptor?
Bronwyn: A preceptor is, in this case, an experienced RN who provides guidance, support, orientation, and mentoring to a new RN.
Charles: Well, I kind of thought that is what it was but Tim had questions, so.
Tim: Yes, I did. I appreciate you.
Charles: It is also important to push people up from within your existing ranks and get them additional opportunities.
Bronwyn: Absolutely, and St. Tammany Health System does a really good job of it. We have a lot of upward mobility from inside. So, it’s funny – when we post positions, typically they are filled first by internal folks who have moved up. So, that is exciting. It is a good thing for us. But we also, for our RN’s, we are rolling out, in fact next week, something called the PEP program. It is the Professional Enhancement Program. This is an opportunity for nurses to engage more with the organization, to do fun projects, to help with recruitment and other things that contribute to the organization while also earning an extra differential or extra money. Other places, they call it a “clinical ladder.” So, you go through levels – there are three levels. It is a way to keep nurses at the bedside and give them opportunities to engage more and to do more at their level of practice.
Charles: Let’s be honest, you can’t say this, but I can: Nurses run the show. Come on.
Bronwyn: Of course, they do.
Charles: The main thing is, what you are trying to impart is, St. Tammany is a good place for nurses, well-supported in the health system itself.
Bronwyn: Absolutely, our leadership knows that the nurses are running the show, as you say, in large part. We are the largest portion of the workforce for good reason. We are the ones that have the most direct patient care. So what the health system has done to really support nurses as well is, we have engaged in a shared governance model. We have had it for years at St. Tammany, but we are about to give it a little jump start. What that means is that nurses are able to control practice and have some governance capability along with their leaders to decide how things should go in their world. They are doing all of this work. They are using evidence to inform their practice, and so we want them to feel and have the control to affect change. Our new shared governance model is going to include things like unit-based councils. We talked about the nurses and that they are such a community and family on those individual units and those divisions. Well, they are going to have some opportunities to gather, to talk about what their needs and concerns are, opportunities for improvement, and then bring that up the chain to the larger shared governance group. That is something that is done at many hospitals, but we are excited to really be rolling out a jump start of that. COVID derailed things a little bit because we have been so swamped, but we are really excited about moving that forward.
Charles: Well things sound good. It has been a pleasure catching up with you. We certainly thank you for the visit.
Bronwyn: Thank you, Charles.
Charles: And continued success there. Tim real quick. She made a big point about nursing. If they want to (apply)?
Tim: Certainly. To make your search a little bit easier, you can go to sttammany.health/careers and really just start from the top. Whether it is career opportunities or to learn more about our culture and opportunities that we have even across the board. Come on board and learn more about St. Tammany Health System.
Bronwyn: It is a great time to be a nurse at St. Tammany Health System.