Transformational Leadership
Transformational LeadershipOur CNO, Dina Dent, DNP, RN, NEA-BC successfully advocated for resources that enhanced a healthy workforce, decreased turnover rates and supplemental agency staff burden. Inova Fairfax Medical Campus (IFMC) partnered with Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and Johnson & Johnson, to create an innovative approach to the acute care delivery model. Strategies in the innovative efforts include decreasing documentation burden, improving patient flow and incorporating a Virtual Nurse program. With record breaking capacity challenges, IFMC leaders partnered with patients and family advisory committee members to re-imagine a discharge hospitality suite that impacted patient throughput significantly. Resources for our continued journey to Magnet® include dedicated hours for unit-based practice councils, Care Site Council (CSC), Shared Governance sub-councils and the Magnet document writing team.
In addition, nursing leaders across the organization continue to drive our cultural transformation journey and foster an environment of diversity, inclusion and belonging. IFMC leaders strive to connect with team members, provide spaces where it is safe to speak up and encourage voices to be heard. Inova seeks to be a place where every team member feels valued, and everyone’s humanity is seen.
Structural Empowerment
IFMC embraces a culture of shared governance. Nurses from across the organization now come together the second Thursday of each month for dedicated shared governance activities. They begin with unit-based practice council meetings and transition to hospital based sub-councils where representatives focus on; professional development and recognition; clinical excellence and patient experience; research and EBP and giving night shift team member’s voice. All sub-council members come together for Care Site Council general session in the afternoon.
Current CSC officers include CSC Chair Katie Healy, BSN, RN, CPHON, CPN CSC; Co-Chair Shannon Fortney, BSN, RN; Recorder Noah Kane, RN, CCRN; and Parliamentarian J. Renee Harris, BSN, RN, OCN.
The weekly Pulse email and a monthly communication, the MEMO, highlight nursing excellence, and our Journey to Magnet Excellence™. Our CNO Dina Dent, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, publishes a Weekly Wins email to keep all in the know related to great happenings in nursing on a weekly basis. She hosts Donuts with Dina and is a voice for nursing in monthly IFMC Town Hall meetings.
Our nurses’ commitment to professional advancement is evident in BSN and certification rates for eligible nurses at 90% and 45.5% respectively. Nurses pursue lifelong learning through local, regional, and national conferences. Twenty-four RNs from IFMC attended the 2023 National Magnet Conference® in Chicago. IFMC is currently writing the 2024 Magnet Document to be submitted October 2024.
Exemplary Professional Practice
Nurse Residency Program celebrated 358 graduates in 2023. IFMC welcomed RN fellows this year. First-year RN turnover dropped significantly, from 20.27% to 15.04% in the last year thanks to the collaborative efforts of our professional practice team and nurse residency facilitators.
IFMC 2022 NDNQI Nursing Engagement resulted in 62.16% of units exceeding the Magnet benchmark in the following domains: adequacy of resources and staffing; autonomy; fundamentals of quality nursing care; interprofessional relationships; leadership access and responsiveness; professional development; and RN-to-RN teamwork and collaboration.
Rounding out ANCC’s “Big Five” quality indicators, IFMC provided care that exceeded the national benchmarks for CAUTI, CLABSI, HAPIs, Patient Burns, Surgical Errors and Falls with Injury. IFMC also excelled in patient experience with the majority of units, inpatient and ambulatory exceeding the Magnet benchmark for the most recent 8 quarters for patient education, courtesy and respect, patient engagement, careful listening, pain and safety.
New Knowledge and Innovation
Integrating new knowledge and evidence into clinical practice is essential for continued professional development. IFMC’s culture of clinical inquiry rose to new heights in 2023 with the development of 29 EBP projects. Disseminating results internally and externally at local, regional, and national conferences, IFMC impacted the landscape of nursing knowledge. EBP Fellowships were awarded to Rebecca DiPatri, BSN, RN, OCN (Life with Cancer Nurse Navigator); Rebecca Babb MSN, APRN, CPNP-AC, CPHON; Marshall Perkins, BSN, RN; and Angelika Vargas, BSN, RN. In 2023, Inova was awarded a seven-year contract to work with the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute’s (PCORI) Health System Implementation initiative to build an interprofessional commitment to learning and growing in implementation science. This project enables us to participate in evidence implementation projects, valued up to $5 million each.
Innovation Accelerator events gave way to Virtual Nurse, leveraging technology to reduce documentation burden and increase patient safety. Wound Care Nursing participated in an Implementation Science project and increased its footprint through virtual wound care consults. This new workflow has significantly increased the instances of patients receiving care sooner.
Additionally, Rebecca DiPatri, BSN, RN,OCN Rebecca Babb, MSN, APRN, CPNP-AC, CPHON Marshall Perkins, BSN, RN Angelika Vargas, BSN, RN Jennifer Bires, MSW, LICSW, OSW-C (ED), Danielle Shafer, DO Niccole Piguet, MD, MPH received the People’s Choice Award at Inova’s Annual Evidence-Based Practice and Research Symposium for their work, Improving Oncofertility knowledge among oncology nurses.
Nursing research is expanding at IFMC as an area of deliberate focus with two ongoing studies assessing nurse’s perception of caring and enhancing patient safety and nursing professionalism.
