OR Manager - December 2020 - 11

Leadership
* Develop academic partnerships
that help promote OR rotations and
practicums. " OR nursing is not well
understood, even in nursing programs,
because not many have a
perioperative elective or faculty to
teach perioperative practice. " Doyle
was involved in developing a perioperative
elective that started in January
2014 at two OhioHealth hospitals.
This 15-week curriculum was
taught in 15 days, using AORN's
Periop 101 for some modules.
Some program participants were
hired at those hospitals and are still
there today, she notes.
* Visit nursing programs at career
fairs, and have a booth at those conferences.
*
Hire new graduates and students
who are eager to work.
* Create or modify your structure and
processes for education, onboarding,
and preceptors.
* Offer sign-on referral and retention
bonuses.
* Develop people at all levels with a
career path, including people who
currently work outside the OR but
aspire to work in the OR.
* Create, support, and develop preceptors.
*
Develop mentoring relationships
between experienced and novice
nurses.
* Develop a " three-deep " succession
plan (ready now, ready in 1 year,
ready in 5 years). She recommends
identifying staff nurses who could
potentially take on a leadership role
now, or within 1 year with some development,
or in 5 years. " You really
need to have a three-deep minimum
number of people that you're constantly
developing to join the ranks
of leadership within the perioperative
space, " she says. Although general
leadership skills are transferrable
across different areas, she notes
that perioperative skills and backgrounds
are unique to the specialty.
www.ormanager.com
Succession planning is integral to positive
organizational performance.
* Assess your staffing models to fit
the needs of your workforce.
* Engage physician partners in the
value of recruitment/retention strategies.
*
Reduce or eliminate hazards in the
workplace such as surgical smoke
and sharps injuries.
Nurture and grow
What might a post-COVID-19 world look
like? Resiliency is an important component
of retention, and Doyle urges
leaders to keep this top of mind. " Find
creative ways to measure resiliency in
real time, " she suggests. A quick and
easy way to do this is to provide some
red and green ping pong balls and two
empty fishbowls. Green balls represent
a feeling of resiliency and support, and
red balls represent a lack of that. " Each
month, ask staff to choose a color and
drop it into one of the fishbowls. "
If there are more red balls than
green, talk with staff to learn what may
be causing stress. " If you monitor it
over time on a monthly basis, you can
tease out the actionable items that can
address problems rather than having to
wait for the yearly staff satisfaction survey, "
she says.
She also recommends the use of
tactics such as Schwartz rounds, " healing
with hounds " or " pet therapy " programs,
or staff comfort rooms. " Even a
10-minute chair massage can do wonders
for your staff, " she adds.
It's also important to solicit ideas
from staff and provide opportunities for
new nurses to take on leadership roles
early in their careers.
" We know that a number of nurses
have died from COVID, retired early,
or plan to retire soon, " Doyle says. Although
some nurses have told her that
they enjoyed their redeployments during
the height of the pandemic in the
spring, she believes most OR nurses
would not choose to transfer from the
OR to other units. Hospitals may, however,
view OR nurses as resources
when shortages occur in other units,
making future redeployments more
common. Those who do not want to
redeploy may end up retiring early, she
says.
" We haven't been proactive enough
within the perioperative community, "
she says. " The shortage we're starting
to see and will experience is very real.
We need to identify and remove barriers,
and think outside the box in our
approach. A leader I worked with many
years ago said, 'Plan the work and work
the plan.' Remember that plans that
align the strategic goals for the organization
will contribute either exponentially
or disproportionately to the success
of the organization. " ✥
-Elizabeth Wood
References
Doyle D. The global nursing shortage:
The solutions are in our hands.
OR Manager Connect. August 26,
2020.
Doyle D. 2020 is the Year of the
Nurse: How do we leave our mark
in an era of shortage? OR Manager
Conference, 2020.
World Health Organization. State of
the World's Nursing. https://www.
who.int/publications/i/item/
nursing-report-2020.
OR Manager | December 2020 11
https://www http://www.who.int/publications/i/item/ http://www.ormanager.com
OR Manager - December 2020

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