In his article, “Looking to Transform Healthcare? – Ask a Nurse,” Forbes contributor Robert J. Szczerba writes that despite nurses’ traditional “back seat” role in healthcare, nurses can and should assume a leadership role in improving care and reducing costs through innovation. In his piece, he cites an initiative by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses to empower nurses as clinical leaders that has resulted in dramatically better outcomes and lower costs.

This initiative, the Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy, a 16-month, hospital-based nurse leadership and innovation training program, empowered nurses as clinician leaders and change agents chartered to improve the quality of patient care and hospital finances. On average, the nurse-driven initiatives decreased patient stays in ICUs and progressive care units, and the time patients needed support from a mechanical ventilator, by up to a full day. In addition, ICU infections and complications decreased by 50%. There are other results as well.
The CSI team at St. Francis Health in Indianapolis, for example, decreased patient falls by 35% with a “No Fall Zone” initiative featuring better staff education and a patient-family fall prevention contract. The team at Duke Raleigh Hospital developed a multidisciplinary protocol that reduced the average length of stay for postoperative ICU patients and saved the hospital more than $1.2 million a year.
Mr. Szczerba is right when he writes, “Hospital administrators looking to improve the quality of care and reduce costs should try talking to the people working on the front lines every day — to a nurse.”
At Barco’s Nightingales Foundation, we applaud Mr. Szczerba for his advocacy for nurses, their leadership skills, and their ability to influence positive change.
~Michael and Frida Donner