On February 23, Chief Nursing Officer Mary Jo Andre hosted her fourth virtual town hall at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women Conference Center. Approximately 300 attendees participated in the live audience and close to 300 more registrants watched the Nursing town hall via live stream, remote gathering locations, unit-based huddles or via the on-demand video recording of the event.
Nursing partnered with the Corporate Communications team to organize this event and engage our team of more than 3,000 nurses that comprise Texas Children’s largest employee population.
The town hall included a spotlight on FY17 nursing accomplishments, system updates and a review of last month’s successful Magnet® site visit, a crucial step in the hospital’s journey toward Magnet® re-designation. Magnet® designation is considered the gold standard for nursing excellence.
Andre, along with Texas Children’s Assistant Vice President of Nursing Gail Parazynski and Nursing Director Shannon Holland, delivered insightful presentations on the remarkable progress that has been made on various strategic projects that directly correlates to several of our nursing priorities:
- Strategic Priorities: Success related to retention (our FY17 goal of turnover rate ≤ 10 percent was met), patient satisfaction and RN engagement were reviewed – all of which were reflected in our successful Magnet site visit.
- Magnet re-designation: One appraiser described the site visit as “life changing” while another commented that “two words for the visit were love and joy.” Among other things, our nursing team was recognized for leadership, interdisciplinary collaboration and steadfast focus on family-centered care.
- System Updates: The town hall included timely updates on Legacy Tower – which is set to open on May 22 – and Mission Control, our new state-of-the-art communications hub to ensure the safe and efficient transfer of patients to our hospital.
The town hall concluded with a Q and A session. Participants in our live audience as well as nurses in our remote locations could submit their questions during the town hall thanks to our use of virtual technology.
For those of you who were unable to attend the Nursing town hall event last week, click here to view it on-demand at your convenience.
