Empowering Nurses In Leadership & Innovation with Rebecca Love | E. 66

Giving nurses a voice in healthcare is the mission of Rebecca Love, Chief Clinical Officer at IntelyCare & President of SONSIEL. Here she explains why to Jim Cagliostro, and how a hackathon changed her life.  

 

Episode Introduction 

In a powerful conversation, Rebecca discusses the impact of the Woodhull study, plummeting post-Covid retention rates in nursing, and how the perception of nursing as ‘’cost’’ is damaging to healthcare. She also reveals the imminent launch of the Commission for Reimbursement, why every hospital should run a hackathon, and how encouraging others raises the voices of the entire nursing profession.   

 

Show Topics

• How a hackathon changed Rebecca’s life

• Nurses as innovators: changing the perception 

• The findings of the Woodhull study 

• The real reason nurse retention levels are falling 

• Gaining a voice during the pandemic

• Advice for the C-Suite: Run a hackathon 

• Encouraging nurses into leadership 

 

 

04:25 How a hackathon changed Rebecca’s life 

Rebecca described her experience of being a nurse in a room full of decision makers. 

‘’… It was at a hospital in Boston. I'll never forget crossing into it being the nurse, not knowing anybody there. And everybody in Boston was there. All of the major tech startup CEOs, the CEO of the hospital, all the doctors, engineers, scientists, everybody was in this room, hundreds of people. And that's when I walked around and I realized there were no other nurses in that room, James. I was like, "Oh my God, I'm not supposed to be here as a nurse, this is where the decision-makers are." We feel this way constantly as nurses, we know everybody that makes all the decisions are in rooms that we're not in. But nobody asked me to leave that weekend, James, and I ended up joining a team, and that's when my whole life changed because we were sitting in these rooms where we were hashing out. I had a doctor and my team, I had an engineer and an occupational therapist. I had a scientist, were all in there. And in walked the CEO of the hospital and he literally sat down next to me and he said, "So, tell us what is your problem and what's your solution that you're fixing?" And this gentleman, our physician starts talking like, "Well, here's the problem and here's how we're going to solve it on the floor."  And I'm squirming, right. Because I'm hearing this doctor explain a solution that's not going to work. So, I finally speak up and I say, "That's not how it's done on the hospital floor. If we do it that way, it's just going to create more work for the nurses." And they looked at each other and the CEO looks at me and goes, "Well, how did I not know that's not how it worked on the floor of the hospital?" And I said, "Well, did you ever ask a nurse?" And they started laughing. So then, I started laughing because I didn't really know what was funny. And then, I realized they thought it was funny to have ever thought about asking a nurse how they should solve these problems.’’

 

07:22 Nurses as innovators: changing the perception 

Rebecca explained how SONSIEL (Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs and Leaders) evolved out of her first nurse hackathon.

‘’And that's when I hypothesized, oh m