Today in health, it, we take a look at the challenges facing nurses. In a really interesting article that has a little different perspective on it. And we're going to take a look at that. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for 16 hospital system and creator this week health. Set of channels and events dedicated to transform healthcare.

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We have a. We have a problem in the environment. So let me just give you some of the quotes from this. So Trish gallery or former CNIO. Shared her insights on the pressing issues causing nurses and nursing leadership turnover in healthcare highlighting the not so apparent root causes, Gallagher points to a hostile work environment, rather than a simple shortage of nurses as the primary factor, pushing nurses away from the bedside. Despite the increasing number of registered nurses. A staffing crisis persists due to widespread dissatisfaction with the working conditions. Okay.

And there's a lot of things that go into this, but one of the things she points out, Gallagher discusses, how rapid technological adoption without adequate training. And a lack of a supportive environment contribute to nurse burnout. She calls for a reevaluation of how technology is utilized in nursing. Emphasizing the need for a revamp in nursing documentation and better integration of technology to ease the burden on nurses.

Gallagher's perspective, sheds light on systemic issues in healthcare that if unaddressed threatened to exacerbate. The staffing crisis by driving skilled nurses. Away from the profession. I found this interview. It's actually an article from an interview. I found this interview. And perspective really interesting.

And I really can't push on a, she has some numbers and so the numbers are right there in the article. You can look at them. She's essentially saying, look, we have enough nurses. We're not really suffering from a shortage. And as she makes that strong case for what we have is a very difficult, and she says hostile work environment.

Let's. My, my thing on these things is not to address the whole of the problem cause addressing the whole of the problem makes it to. Daunting. To overcome, right? Yes. Nurses are facing a hostile environment in that. It could be unsafe. There could be violence or threats of violence from patients. There could be, as we've seen in airplanes and other things, there could just be more hostile rhetoric. In trying to serve patients.

Then there has been in the past. That's potentially outside of our control. Yes. We need to create a safe environment for the nurses. But that's potentially outside of our control. Let's talk it, talk about it from a technology perspective, because that is specifically what she's addressing here.

And she says we have to reevaluate how technology is utilized. The nursing, emphasizing the need to revamp nursing documentation and better integration of technology to ease the burden on nurses. All right. So we've been. Pushing. Technology change. Into healthcare for the better part of, I don't know, 15 years About 15, maybe 20 years now.

We've been really have twenties probably too long, but you get the picture somewhere between 15 to 20 years. EHR meaningful use we've been pushing technology into this space. And it has made some, obviously it's made some things much better and it's made some things much worse. And one of the things we hear over and over again is this whole idea of documentation and how much worse. Documentation is we tend to focus on the clinician side. Healthcare it's designed for the clinician.

It's not designed for the patient. It's not designed for the nurse. It's designed for the physician. I'm sorry. I keep saying clinician. I meant physician. It's designed for the physician. We wait in a waiting room because the physician's time is so valuable. And so the patient is relegated to this subpar experience because the physicians time is what we optimize for the nurse's experience is suboptimal because. They are there to serve the physician. That's my perspective in all the conversations I've had in over a decade in healthcare.

It feels to me like the entire ecosystem is designed for the physician. I'm not sure we're going to change that overnight, but we can look at this and say, all right let's spend some time focusing in on the nurse workflow. I had somebody say to me nurse. Flow sheets was a flow sheets or call sheets.

I forget which one it was. And they said, we actually asked the question, do we need these. And I remember hearing it, I thought, oh my gosh, like we don't ask those questions much. Do we need this data? Do we need this documentation? Do we need this workflow. Does this need to be here? We rarely ask this.

It becomes part of the tradition of delivering care in our organization. And I think somewhat that is somewhat the job of the CMI IO. And the CNIO and the CIO somewhat. Unless you're a physician. Or have a a clinical degree. Sometimes it's hard to push into those areas, but it's to see those things and say, be able to ask the questions, is that important?

Do we need that? Is that necessary? Do we really need to collect that information? Doesn't need to be collected at that point. Is there a better way to collect that information? Can we collect that directly from the. Patient and then just essentially validate that information. I think the other thing we are seeing right now is we are on the cusp of of artificial intelligence.

Being able to take a significant amount of burden. Off of everybody in every role. And the nurses, no exception here. One of the things that we are keeping an eye on is in terms of documentation. This. The ambient clinical listening and these tools because of AI, instead of what used to be, these things would go out, they record it, they'd send it out to a scribe.

It would be transcribed and come back. And then we thought we were being slick and that we created environments where it was collected at, went to a digital scribe. Essentially he came back well, now that the scribes are being replaced by technology, we're seeing the cost just plummet. And as I cost plummets. This is not only a tool for physicians anymore.

This should be a tool that we were looking at. For widespread adoption across nursing as well. And we should be pushing for this. How can we make the nurses job? Better easier. How can we finally unlock technology to make their job better? In the process and not more of a burden. I have been a. Quoted as saying that the nurse has been forgotten in these conversations for at least for the better part of the first 10, if not the first 15 years of this journey.

And I think it's only recently, maybe over the last year and a half, two years that the nurse is finally at the table. We're finally listening to the nurse. We're finally having those conversations and allowing them to speak into the technology that gets brought to bear at the bedside, that the technology that serves them. I think that's a critical function in and of itself for sure. I think there, the role of the technologist is to invite them to the table, to listen to them at the table. Absolutely.

And to recognize that we've created a challenge for them, and it may not be a challenge that you've created. Per se. At your health system, but it could be something. That the EHR providers didn't listen well enough to nurses along the way and created some things that are in there that shouldn't be there, perhaps it is tradition. And it just needs a nudge from somebody to say, Hey, is that important? Do we need that? Or maybe it's a opportunity to look at the technology and where you're buying and deploying technology.

One of the things we're looking at computer vision right now, And we're seeing a bunch of health systems that are saying, look, camera in every room and it's going to help in the documentation process. It's going to help in the notification process. Hey, this room is empty. This room is clean.

This. Person has got another bed. They're a fall risk. Hey. This pressure wound patient needs to be turned. All these things are possible with computer vision. That with Amie and clinical listening. A little bit more of the burden, a little bit more of the burden taken off, but it's not going to alleviate. The need for humans to look at the process and the data that's being collected and say, Hey, are we even using this data anywhere? In the delivery of care or in reporting, or is it even needed anymore with regard to the regulatory environment that we live in? These are questions that need to be asked.

That's what the CMIO CNIO and CIO as a team can bring to the organization. If we take these assertions at face value in that. Technology has been a part of creating a hostile work environment. I believe technology can also be a. But play a major role in alleviating that a hostile work environment, if not alleviating it. Definitely taking it a lot further than that and making a much better work environment. For the nurses that serve the patients so well,

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