CNOs must be ready to strategize and solve key issues in nursing this year.
On this week’s episode of HL Shorts, we hear from Lisa Dolan, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Ardent Health Services, about the top five challenges CNOs are facing in the new year. Tune in to hear her insights.
What do you predict will be the top 5 biggest challenges in nursing in 2024?
Dolan: Well, of course, at the top of the list is just the supply of nurses. The demand is far outpacing the supply. So that'll be a key piece.
Second to that is stabilization of support roles. As nursing becomes more and more taxed, it's especially important that we have a support team around the nurse. We're finding it more and more difficult to be competitive in our staffing of support roles. That's a that's a key worry and concern as well.
I think another key piece is innovation. There's so much great innovation going on, but how we incorporate that so that it's helpful to the nurse and not adding additional burden to the nurse is especially important.
Frontline nursing leaders and being able to retain the nursing leader. That's a very difficult position, in fact, I always say it's one of the toughest positions in the hospital. Being able to retain and support those frontline leaders will be key.
And then last but not least is really just burnout in general of the clinical staff. The roles are so difficult at times, and so [having] a healthy work environment for people to feel comfortable and not experience the rate of burnout that they have over the past several years [will be critical].
G Hatfield is the nursing editor for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
CNOs will continue dealing with the short supply of nurses.
Leaders must know how to implement new technology without making it a burden on the nurses.
Burnout continues to be a key concern, and CNOs must be ready to help their nurses avoid it.