Nurses have always needed to possess a strong sense of resilience: to persevere even when times are tough. As Linda F. Robinson, MSN, BSN, RN—and the vice president of clinical excellence for MDM Healthcare— puts it, hospital nurses will go down with the ship to help patients in the most challenging situations.
So, what does it mean to be resilient? Resilience is a person’s capacity to maintain their central purpose and integrity even when the circumstances drastically change. That, overall, is a very useful trait for nurses to have.
Because of their resilience, though, many a nurse, pandemic time in particular, has put their own well-being to the side. Some experienced nurses worked exceptionally long hours; they became burned out and quit during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing new nurses to lack mentors on the hospital floor or resources to guide them through this unprecedented experience.
In this edition of PX Space podcast, Linda shares her insights into the life of hospital nurses. We also invite you to read this article summarizing her interview about nurse pandemic experiences. Although the issues she discusses hold true for people on the global frontlines, nurses that she has worked with in the United States serve as her focus.
Positive Momentum for Hospital Nurses
How can nurses, especially newer ones, receive the support they need? How can the well-being of a nurse, pandemic time or not, be something that nursing leadership and healthcare management can focus on?
Standard advice can be well-meaning but difficult to implement in real-life scenarios for those on the global frontlines, nurses who already have long, jam-packed days. Getting enough rest is a common piece of advice; it can be hard to achieve for hospital nurses who work long shifts and still have a family and house to care for. Exercise is also helpful but with the same caveat. Eat a healthy diet! Wonderful advice but busy nurses often eat what’s available on the nurse’s table in order to get back to work, ASAP.
Providing nurses with the resources they need can dramatically improve conditions at work for them, especially ones that allow them to optimize their time. This, in turn, gives them more time to assist patients. Today, fortunately, healthcare organizations can leverage the power of technology to help when medical professionals are stretched thin.
Journey PX: Patient Education Technology
Journey PX is MDM’s patient education and engagement solution, one that allows medical teams to construct lean clinical workflows—which is one of Linda’s specialties—by automating and streamlining the patient education process, providing video connections in patient rooms, offloading non-clinical tasks, and more. This provides patients with the information they need while saving hospital nurses and other members of the healthcare team valuable time.
This time can then be spent in ways to make it a better day for nurses: maybe hospital nurses can get a shoulder massage or take reflective pauses, participate in nurse huddles, and more—with these refreshing breaks able to revitalize them to once again promote joy.