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The Handoff will be back with season 3 next Wednesday, January 27 featuring interviews on topics like clinical ethics and moral resilience, mental health and burnout, the intersection of nursing and the gig economy, and diversity in nursing at the leadership level.

Our guest for this episode is an expert on clinical education and is helping to answer a question that is close to Dr. Nurse Dan’s heart: “How do we train the doctors and nurses of the future?”  Lawrence Sherman is the CEO of Meducate Global, a consultancy whose goal is to improve the education of healthcare professionals around the world. He and Dan talk about how the landscape for clinical education is changing, and how those changes have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic as learning has moved from a face-to-face setting to a digital one.  Lawrence shares his thoughts on how the role of clinical educator needs to evolve from a one-directional transferer of knowledge to a facilitator of learning. He also shares advice for nurse leaders who want to build on the innovation happening in academia and embed that into their own culture of continuous learning. We also talk about the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary learning in a hospital setting.  Links to recommended reading:  Meducate Global  TEDxMaastricht - Lawrence Sherman - "Turning medical education inside out and upside down"  The Future of Nursing Education  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/lawrence-sherman

Our guest for this episode has some strong opinions on nursing education and nurse leadership, and how we can evolve both of those areas.  Jannah Amiel became a pediatric nurse in 2007, but quickly realized that her passion was in teaching after seeing that the traditional nursing school model wasn’t setting up many students for success. After working in academia for several years, she ultimately launched TootRN, a one-to-one tutoring program that prepares nursing students for their NCLEX. She’s also a nursing Content Manager at Osmosis, where develops content that’s custom tailored to Nursing students.  In her conversation with Dr. Nurse Dan, Jannah shares her thoughts on what she thinks is working in nursing education and where she thinks we need improvement. She also talks about why our thinking about nurse leaders is antiquated and causes us to miss out on promising talent and why conversations with nurses about leadership need to start much earlier in their career.  Links to recommended reading:  Osmosis Team Spotlight: Jannah Amiel, MSN, BSN, RN, Nursing Content Manager  Osmosis Raise the Line Podcast  The NCLEX® Playbook  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/jannah-amiel

Today’s guest is someone very special who is working tirelessly to change the field of nursing.  Andrea Dalzell is a registered nurse and a pioneering activist for people with disabilities. At five years old, she was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a neurological disorder that left her unable to walk. Despite spending most of her life in a wheelchair, Andrea has been determined to make a difference, graduating with honors and receiving many awards for her advocacy work and leadership, including the Cindy Loo Disability Rights Advocate Award.  In 2018, Andrea became not only a registered nurse, but the only nurse in all of New York City who is in a wheelchair. After the school where she was working closed down in March, Andrea heeded Governor Cuomo’s call for help and began working on the frontlines with the city’s COVID patients.  Throughout her professional journey, Andrea has had to fight against the preconceived notions that her professors, bosses and colleagues have had about her disability. She has worked tirelessly to promote health inclusion and advocate for people with disabilities. Last month, she was awarded the inaugural Craig H. Neilsen Visionary Prize, which she’ll be using to start a foundation to encourage people with disabilities to get into the field of nursing and to ensure that nursing schools are equipped to handle students with disabilities.  Dr. Dan speaks with Andrea about her experiences, what she plans to do next and what she wants nurse leaders and other individuals working in the healthcare industry to know.  Links to recommended reading:  Craig H. Neilsen Visionary Prize  'Good Morning America' surprises NYC nurse, disability advocate with $1 million This RN Who Uses a Wheelchair Is Treating COVID-19 Patients in NYC  Trusted Health Frontline Nurse Mental Health & Well-being Survey  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/andrea-dalzell 

One of the things that many people are surprised to learn about nursing is how strong the culture of bullying can be. It’s an issue that Dr. Nurse Dan feels passionately about addressing, and in this episode he goes deep with Dr. Renee Thompson on this issue and some of the root causes behind it.  Renee is the CEO and founder of The Healthy Workforce Institute, a training and consulting company dedicated to helping healthcare organizations create a healthy workforce by eradicating bullying and incivility. In her conversation with Dan, Renee shares advice on the behaviors that nurse leaders should look out for among their staff as well as key confronting strategies. She explains why confronting is actually much easier than you might think. Renee also shares where she sees the most bad behavior happening and the role of self-care in creating a healthy workplace. Links to recommended reading:  A survey of the impact of disruptive behaviors and communication defects on patient safety.  What Leaders and Employees Can Do To Eradicate Bullying in Healthcare  Enough! Eradicate Bullying and Incivility in Healthcare: Strategies for Front Line "Do No Harm" Applies To Nurses Too! Share Conflict In Nursing: Types, Strategies, and Resolutions    The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/renee-thompson 

2020 has been a pivotal year for discussions about race and many of these important conversations have spilled over into healthcare, forcing those of us who work in this industry to reckon with how we care for patients and how we treat our coworkers of color.  Our guest for this episode is Ashley Sayles, a pediatric nurse practitioner living and working in Baltimore. Ashley has been very open about her brushes with racism and her experience being the only black nurse on her unit. In this conversation, she shares invaluable insights and advice to nurse leaders on how to create more equitable and inclusive workplaces and guidance to nurses who want to be allies for the nurses of color on their units. Ashley also shares how 2020 has been a turning point for her and other black nurses and the changes she’s witnessed as a result of the growing Black Lives Matter movement. Links to recommended reading:  The ReNegade Résumé Being the Only Black Nurse on the Unit  Black Nurses Rock  The Role of Allyship in Healthcare and Nursing  How Nurses Can Help Dismantle Racial Healthcare Disparity  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/ashley-sayles 

Over the course of this season, we’ve had several guests on the show to talk about the unique role that nurses play in spurring grassroots innovation within their organizations. Our guest for this episode is putting this into practice and has made innovation a theme of her career.  Charlene Platon is a rising star in the nursing profession. In under ten years, she’s risen up the ranks to become the Director of Ambulatory Nursing at Stanford Health Care and was recently named as one of the inaugural recipients of Johnson & Johnson’s Nurse Innovation Fellowship. She’s passionate about using technology to transform healthcare delivery and improve patient care.  In addition to innovation, Charlene is also passionate about leadership, particularly from a millennial point of view. In this episode, she and Dan talk about everything from gaining confidence as a new leader, the importance of soft skills and emotional intelligence in managing teams and how to make time for innovation-related projects as a nurse. Links to recommended reading:  Meet the 12 Inspired Nurses of the First J&J Nurse Innovation Fellowship Ambulatory Nursing at Stanford Health Care   The Nurse Hack for Health: COVID-19 Virtual Hackathon  Association of California Nurse Leaders  Episode 18: Why these two design experts think nurses are uniquely well-suited to be agents of innovation  Episode 24: Why we need more products designed by nurses  Episode 30: How nurses can develop an innovation mindset The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/charlene-platon

Our guest for this episode believes that skilled leadership is, first and foremost, about being what he calls a “people whisperer.” Sean Olson is an executive coach with more than 20 years of experience helping individuals and teams reach their full potential. In his role, he has worked with dozens of healthcare and nurse leaders.  Sean is a firm believer that being a nurse leader is about people, not processes and that knowing and being connected to one’s team is the single most important part of the job.  Sean and Dan talk about how to cultivate those relationships, particularly when you manage a large team and can’t stay tapped into every single individual. Sean also talks about how he’s coaching clients who have seen their rate of innovation speed up as a result of COVID-19, and want to keep that pace even after the pandemic subsides.   Links to recommended reading:  Renogize Professional Coaching  What Are the HALT Risk States?  Diffusion of Innovations  This Is How I Role The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/sean-olson

In our first-ever live episode of The Handoff, Dr. Nurse Dan is joined by our guest from episode one, Courtnay Caufield, Chief Nurse Executive at Kaiser Permanente’s Sunnyside Medical Center, to talk about all things mental wellness.  In this conversation, Dan and Courtnay talk about how nursing leaders can support their teams with proven tools to help them build resilience, improve their mental wellness and ensure the best possible outcomes for their patients.   Links to recommended reading:  Innovations for the Modern Nurse Leader: Team Mental Wellness The Handoff Live on YouTube  Resources for Mental Health & Emotional Support  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/live

Making the shift from the bedside to nurse manager or nurse leader is one of the biggest challenges that nurses face.  Our guest for this episode is well versed on this issue because her current role is all about creating professional development programs for nurses. Crystal Lawson is the Education Director at the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, overseeing their fellowships for nurse managers and directors.  In this conversation, Crystal lets Dr. Dan pepper her with questions on everything from how new nurse leaders can settle into their roles, the difference between accountability and availability, and tips on budgeting, time management and boundary setting. She also shares some great tips for listeners who are interested in applying for one of the AONL’s fellowships.  Links to recommended reading:  AONL Nurse Leader Fellowships Nurse Executive Competencies  Nurse Manager Competencies  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/crystal-lawson

As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the country and forced many nursing schools to pivot to online learning, the use of simulation in nursing curriculum has skyrocketed. And no one is more passionate about and more of an expert on simulation than our guest for this episode, KT Waxman.  KT is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Executive Leadership DNP Program at the University of San Francisco and the immediate past president of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. She’s been working in the field of simulation for 15 years and has seen her work take on more relevance than ever over the last several months.  Dan and KT and I discuss the shift to VR and screen-based learning in both schools and hospitals, how she’s focused on helping nurses achieve the outcomes of their coursework while relying heavily on simulation and how simulation can be used in some lesser known scenarios, like leadership development.  Links to recommended reading:  The California Simulation Alliance Position Statement on Use of Virtual Simulation during the Pandemic California Assembly Bill 2288: Nursing programs: state of emergency Health Care Finance for Nurse Executives Nursing Administration Quarterly  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/kt-waxman

The team at Trusted Health is getting ready to host our first-ever live episode of The Handoff!  Dr. Nurse Dan will be joined by our guest from episode one, Courtnay Caufield, Chief Nurse Executive at Kaiser Permanente’s Sunnyside Medical Center, to talk about all things mental wellness.  In this conversation, we’ll be talking about how nursing leaders can support their teams with proven tools to help them build resilience, improve their mental wellness and ensure the best possible outcomes for their patients.   The episode will be streamed live online at 2pm PT / 5pm ET on Monday, October 5 and Dan and Courtnay will be taking live questions from our audience. To register, please visit: https://www.bevycares.com/events/details/bevy-cares-trusted-health-presents-trusted-health-presents-the-handoff-podcast-live-stop-nurse-burnout-today/#/

As nurse leaders climb the career ladder and begin to manage teams and budgets, many find that the learning curve for the financial portion of their job is quite steep. Our guest for this episode is here to help nurses understand how they can meet this challenge and develop a better working relationship with their organization’s finance team.    Deborah Stilgenbauer is a rare breed. She’s a former bedside nurse who now works on the finance team at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she helps Chief Nurse Executives with their budgeting, variance reporting and staffing modeling.    Deborah and Dan talk about the biggest disconnect between nurses and finance, where she sees the biggest financial knowledge gap when it comes to nurse leaders, and how frontline clinicians can have a positive impact on their team’s budget.   They also talk about how New York-Presbyterian’s staff is doing in the wake of the city’s COVID surge this spring, as well as how the hospital has adjusted its staffing practices as a result.  Links to recommended reading:  Trusted Health Frontline Nurse Mental Health & Well-being Survey The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/deborah-stilgenbauer

In this episode of The Handoff, Dr. Nurse Dan gets to talk about his favorite topic -- innovation in nursing -- with innovation and design thinking expert Marion Leary.  Marion is the Director Of Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where she teaches on topics including design thinking and disruption in the healthcare industry. She’s also the host of the Amplify Nursing Podcast.  In this conversation, Marion shares how she is trying to infuse innovation methodology into every level of the curriculum at Penn and to give her students an innovation mindset that they can take with them into the field. She and Dan talk about what areas of nursing are most primed for change, how COVID-19 has inspired more nurses to develop solutions to the problems they see and how all nurses can bring innovation into their daily life.  Links to recommended reading:  Design Thinking for Health  SONSIEL: Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs & Leaders  Amplify Nursing Podcast  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/marion-leary

In recent years, more and more hospitals and health systems have launched investment arms in order to discover and fund companies that can help solve some of their internal challenges.  Our guest for this episode is Cyril Philip, a Principal at Providence Ventures, where he focuses on investments in healthcare technology, tech-enabled services, and digital health. We talk about the kinds of companies that get him excited and what technology he’s looking to invest in.  He also shares how he engages clinicians in his vetting and due diligence process, and why it’s so important for him to get them excited and involved before he decides to make an investment.  And for all of our listeners out there who are budding entrepreneurs, Cyril shares some great advice about getting your company off the ground and looking for investment, including the one question he always encourages entrepreneurs to ask themselves.  Links to recommended reading:  Providence Ventures blog Leave Your Job (But Stay in Nursing) - Trusted Health Blog The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/cyril-philip

Staffing has long been one of the Achilles heels of the nursing profession, confounding nurse managers and nurse leaders alike, and taking up an inordinate amount of time. Our guest for this episode is an expert on the topic and has taken her cues from other industries to treat this as a data science problem.  Early in her career, Therese Fitzpatrick was a chief nursing officer for various hospitals and health systems in the midwest before taking a turn as an entrepreneur, receiving her PhD in sociology and becoming a professor in the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health. Today she is an executive at consulting firm Kaufman Hall, where she helps hospitals across the country assess their clinical and operational performance, and optimize their staffing. In this episode Therese walks us through how she applies big data to the problems of staffing and workforce optimization, some low-tech ways that nurse managers can approach scheduling, and how COVID-19 will impact the evolution of the nursing workforce. Therese believes that robust float pools driven by Millenial and Gen Z nurses are the future and encourages nurse leaders to include them in conversations around staffing and workforce. Links to recommended reading:  Improving Quality of Nursing Worklife: A Global Perspective Using Labor Optimization for Nurse Staffing The Art and Science of Nurse Staffing (AACN) Effective Staffing Takes a Village: Creating the Staffing Ecosystem Advanced Analytics Must Drive the Next Round of Productivity Initiatives https://www.kaufmanhall.com/ The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/therese-fitzpatrick 

What is the ideal interval between shift rotations? Does splitting sleep work? How long is the ideal nap? What’s the difference between a power nap and a restorative nap?  On this episode of The Handoff, Dan is joined by Washington State University Professor Lois James, who is an expert on the role of sleep in performance. She and Dan speak about the ways in which the culture of nursing is often in conflict with good sleep habits. She shares some very practical fatigue countermeasures, as well as strategies that hospitals and nurse leaders can take to optimize shift lengths for their staff.  Dr. James’s other research interest is racism and implicit bias in healthcare, and she also speaks about the dangers of implicit bias in nursing, how those biases are formed and strategies for overcoming them.  Links to recommended reading:  https://nursing.wsu.edu/  https://dailyevergreen.com/8362/news/sleep-and-racial-bias-affect-police-officer-judgement/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290437363_The_Reverse_Racism_Effect_Are_Cops_More_Hesitant_to_Shoot_Black_Than_White_Suspects https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QW-xUh4AAAAJ&hl=en https://news.wsu.edu/2014/09/02/deadly-force-lab-finds-racial-disparities-in-shootings/ https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/sickness-sleep-nurses-nightshift  https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/nurse-stress-sleep-not-anymore  The full transcript for this episode can be found here:  www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/lois-james

Critical care nurses have played a crucial role in the fight against COVID-19, and many have had a front row seat to how the virus has affected patients. Our guest, Megan Brunson, is a 20 year veteran of the ICU and the immediate past president of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, which is the largest specialty nurses association in the US. On this episode of The Handoff, Megan and Dan talk about everything from the health disparities she sees firsthand with COVID patients in the hospital she works in in Texas, why she thinks now is a good time for nurses to consider a career in critical care, and her advice to nurses and nurse managers on how to prevent burnout.  Megan has been at the bedside for 23 years, with 20 of those in the ICU. She has worked the night shift for her entire career and is passionate about the role of sleep in keeping nurses mentally and physically healthy. Links to recommended reading:  https://www.aacn.org/nursing-excellence/dear-world https://www.trustedhealth.com/nursing-specialties-guide/critical-care-nurse The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/megan-brunson

2020 has been an unprecedented year for all nurses, and nursing students are no exception. The pandemic has prevented many students from meeting their in-person clinical hours, setting off legislative fights in some states and delaying graduation in others.  Our guests Andrew Rohrer and Caeli Matanky are the president and vice president of the California Nursing Students’ Association, respectively. Dan chats with them about the transition from in-person instruction to distance learning, how nursing school is teaching diversity and what it’s like to look for a job as a recent nursing graduate.  Andrew is currently enrolled in a joint ADN/BSN program between Modesto Jr. College and Cal State Stanislaus. He started the CNSA chapter at his school and ultimately became the president of the entire association. Caeli graduated from Sonoma State’s nursing program this spring and was CNSA’s vice president. Since our conversation, she has since accepted a job on the Cardiac Telemetry Unit at Adventist Health in Rohnert Park, CA. Andrew can be reached at pres (at) cnsa (dot) org and Caeli can be reached at vp (at) cnsa (dot) org. Links to recommended reading:  https://www.cnsa.org/ https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/advice-for-new-grad-nurses-2020  https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/25-things-they-didnt-tell-you-in-nursing-school-but-we-will  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/andrew-caeli

Nurses are the nation’s largest group of healthcare professionals and use more products than any other group of clinicians, giving them what Karen Giuliano calls  a “uniquely practical and care sensitive perspective on healthcare delivery.”  Karen started her career as a critical care nurse. She was a self described “tinkerer” whose curiosity about products in the ICU ultimately helped her pivot her career into product development, and she wants to encourage more nurses to get involved in product design and development. In this conversation, Karen and Dan talk about why nurses are the ideal clinicians to address everyday problems in healthcare, how she hopes that COVID-19 will speed up the role of nurses in healthcare innovation and advice for nurses who want to build new products.  Karen can be reached at kkgiuliano(at)nursing(dot)umass(dot)edu  Links to recommended reading:  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen_Giuliano2  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/karen-giuliano