For 16 years, nurses have topped Gallup polls as the most honest and ethical American professionals. At the same time, nurses are gaining esteem across the country for the ways they drive value within health systems, such as improving patient experience and satisfaction. Throughout Penn Medicine – where each of our six hospitals has earned the prestigious Magnet designation for nursing excellence – there is no aspect of patient care that nurses don’t have an imprint on.
From admittance to discharge, nurses provide the majority of hospital-delivered care. In most settings, nurses spend more time with patients compared to other types of clinicians. That makes nurses the integrators of the clinical team, helping to bring together varying perspectives that combine to map care plans for each patient.
Thanks to their training – which focuses on treating the whole person – nurses bring an especially humanizing perspective to clinical practice, and they’re constantly checking with patients in both formal and informal ways to understand what’s important to them and tailoring plans to meet those goals. They have the knowledge to say: “If your goal is to walk down the aisle at your daughter’s wedding, here’s what we do to ensure you get there.” In this way, nurses connect the goals of care with the goals of the patient – and the effect often improves patient outcomes.
The shift toward delivering more outpatient care offers nurses an even greater opportunity to shape the care of both chronic and acute conditions in more accessible settings. In a way, today’s health care system is bringing nurses back to their roots in public health, providing more patient education than ever, and serving as a lynchpin to keep people well and out of the hospital.
Physician-nurse partnerships are the key part of care teams throughout our health system, and nurses practice with greater autonomy in many settings. Nurse practitioners, who comprise many of the 1,200 advanced practice providers throughout Penn Medicine, oversee care in settings such as trauma intensive care units at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and in several acute-care services at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, including hematology-oncology, medical critical care and cardiac surgery. And nurse practitioners are playing key roles in our telemedicine efforts, helping patients get convenient care through First Call, Penn Medicine’s new virtual on-demand medical care line for employees.
We’re also ensuring that nurses are a key part of the teams which are planning the future of Penn Medicine. For instance, they serve in leadership positions on the PennFirst team that’s developing the Pavilion, the biggest building project in Penn Medicine history. In information technology, nurses played key roles in our electronic medical record (EPIC) deployment, where their clinical expertise helped optimize workflow. And in clinical engineering, nurses identify ways to leverage technology to help them better serve patients, such as ceiling lifts and smart scales.
Nurses are known as “knowledge workers,” constantly synthesizing information and data, and implementing complex processes that directly affect patients -- and they’re constantly striving to learn more. In the past year, we have provided over $22 million in tuition assistance benefits to our staff, including 1,100 nurses who are pursuing master’s degrees and doctoral studies to obtain specialty clinical training and expertise in fields like health care administration.
Their extensive education and crucial insights make them integral members of our senior leadership teams, too: Regina Cunningham, PhD, RN, is HUP’s new CEO, and the chief nursing officers at each of our hospitals work in tandem with physician and administrative business leaders to focus every facet of our hospital operations.
We’re also seeing nurses take the lead on important research efforts, such as the nurse scientists across Penn Medicine seeking answers to the important questions of patient care. One such nurse, Rebecca Trotta, PhD, RN, director of Nursing Research and Science at HUP, is working to decrease the number of frail elderly patients who are readmitted to the hospital soon after discharge.
Nurses at Penn Medicine – and beyond – drive quality and safety. They boost our clinical outcomes and shape the overall patient experience. The singular service they provide to our patients is a cornerstone of the reason why we’re the region’s top health care provider, and one of the nation’s very best, year after year.