Speaking abstract: Sandy Summers

Letter to Nursing Hospital Leaders on Nurse Retention

Because you are an empowered nurse, we are sure you help the nurses at your hospital feel as valued as possible. But in the event your hospital nursing has any challenges with retention or other aspects of getting the respect and resources it deserves, Sandy Summers would love to work with you to increase understanding of their value. Not just in terms of improving media about nurses, but also helping them be universally perceived as a valued and respected part of the whole team.

Frankly, even when the Chief Nursing Officer is strong and supportive, decades of ingrained ways of thinking by physicians, insurers, financial managers, public relations staff, and even nurses themselves can affect how valued nurses feel. But we can work to improve this dynamic and help nurses feel more respected, which will make it more likely they will stay on at your hospital.

We have many possible strategies to help improve how nursing is seen. These include ways to convey the value that nurses bring to patients, from photos hanging on the walls of the hospital to the content of hospital websites, as well as persuading media professionals to cover nursing work, helping physicians learn about nursing, invitations for nurse-led improvements in care, ensuring that nurses serve on decision-making bodies, efforts to help non-nurses learn about nurse-prescribed work (surveillance, patient education, and advocacy), encouraging language that respects nursing autonomy, and many more.

If you think you might find it useful to explore such options, or simply have a presentation to your hospital nurses about public understanding of nursing, Sandy Summers would love to come out to work with you on that. When nurses feel valued in line with their real worth, they are likely to provide better, more efficient care and to stay in their current positions, reducing the costs of turnover.

We can do anything from a short presentation to a day or week-long workshop to help you get up and running. Please get in touch with your needs, and we can design a presentation or workshop specifically for you and your hospital at info@truthaboutnursing.org or 410-323-1100. Thank you and we look forward to hearing form you.

Sandy Summers