Redesign of Nursing Leadership

Mary Lou Wesley, RN, MSN, Chief Nursing Officer

The strength of nursing leadership is critical to patient care and safety and the satisfaction of both our patients and our nurses at the bedside.  Our nursing leadership structure must be designed to foster effective communication, to have clear accountability for outcomes, to provide appropriate support for our nursing staff and to offer opportunities for development of new leaders.

With the overall goal to strengthen the leadership roles closest to the bedside, we have identified three bedside leadership tracks: management, education and practice.

In general, our new unit nursing leadership structure will include a Nurse Manager and Assistant Nurse Manager and two new hourly positions - a Unit-Based Educator and a Permanent Charge Nurse for each shift. Unit size and scope were taken into consideration in the allocation of these leadership roles. This new structure will provide nursing leadership on every shift and moves more resources to the bedside.

This redesign of our nursing leadership structure will improve the effectiveness and satisfaction of our nursing leadership team and provide improved support to our nursing staff at the bedside.