Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1259738
Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com 19 June 15–July 27, 2020 4. Never stop learning. The best nurses are always learning. Of course, we have a legal responsibility to be lifelong learners to maintain our licenses, but with lives hanging in the balance, no one should have to order us to continue educating ourselves. Don't let budget cuts limit your educa- tion and training opportunities. Invest in yourself. Resist the temptation to trade short-term savings for long-term losses. As a single mother, getting my master's degree was an undertaking in itself. After my third class, my hospital discontinued tuition reimbursement for advanced degrees. So, I paid for it myself with my Visa card and then worked and worked until I could pay it off because I knew it was the right thing to do for my career. 5. Nurse leaders, don't wall yourselves off. I've found that nurse leaders can end up spending most of our time in meetings away from our patients and staff. To keep this from happening, when I was a chief nurse I created a program called "Frontline Fridays." Every Friday, my nurse leadership team and I put on our scrubs and worked along- side the nursing staff. This program came about after hearing our frontline staff voice concerns about not seeing their leaders, and those leaders not knowing what was truly happening at the bedside. Soon after launching Frontline Fridays, we saw improvements in patient satisfaction, leader engagement and patient outcomes. The most powerful moment for me came from an elderly female patient that I was helping turn to prevent pressure ulcers. She told me that she had never met a chief nurse before and that the staff nurses were amazing, especially those on the night shift. She explained that they kept her from being lonely and afraid. Without the Frontline Fridays program, I would never have had the chance to look in her eyes and hear her beautiful com- ments, which fueled me that day, that week and even today. Moments like that drive me to keep on leading and encourag- ing nurse leaders to stay visible and at the bedside. 6. Join the Nurse Leader Alliance. Early in my career as a neonatal intensive care nurse, I quickly learned how impor- tant it was for me to be a voice for my patients, who were too small to speak, and for their parents, who often were too scared to speak. This was the beginning of my unwavering commitment to using my role as a nurse to make a difference in the lives of the patients I touch. Now, as seasoned nurse leader living through COVID-19, a gnawing grew inside of me. As I often do, I took this gnawing feeling and turned it into writing. My origi- nal LinkedIn post, "Making COVID-19 Count" (www.linkedin.com/in/armstron- glori), resulted in an overwhelming amount of feedback from the nursing leadership community. So many shared my desire to turn this moment in nursing history into a movement. With that, the concept of the Nurse Leader Alliance was born. My colleagues and I are joining forces to create a grass- roots nurse leadership organization to ele- vate the role nurses play in delivering qual- ity patient care and improving outcomes — the ultimate goals of every hospital. Through the Nurse Leader Alliance, we want to give a voice to every nurse, nurse manager, nurse director and nurse leader focused on transforming care of patients and the image of nursing. Yes, we are heroes right now as a result of COVID-19, but we shouldn't have to resort to hero- ics to do our jobs. We are going to make this moment count by using our skills to: • Galvanize every nurse leader across the industry into action • Innovate how nurse leaders come together and use their voices • Advance the role nurse leaders play in healthcare decision-making. You can join us in creating a community at all levels of nursing and across all prac- tice areas. Like Florence Nightingale, we can make a generational difference by capi- talizing on the public appreciation of our profession in this moment of crisis. To learn how you can get involved, please visit us at inspirenurseleaders.com. For over 25 years, Lori Armstrong, RN, DNP, NEA-BC, has mastered best practices for nurse leaders as a CNO at top hospitals across the country. She is a consultant, coach and keynote speaker. WN Yes, we are heroes right now as a result of COVID-19, but we shouldn't have to resort to heroics to do our jobs. We must elevate the role nurses play in healthcare decision-making.