Becker's 11th Annual Meeting: 3 Questions with Debi Pasley, System Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at CHRISTUS Health

Debi Pasley, MS, RN, NEA-BC, FACHE, serves as System Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at CHRISTUS Health.

On May 24th, Debi will serve on the panel "Nurse Bullying: How to Broach One of Healthcare’s LessDiscussed Problems — How Do You Address Nurse Bullying, and How Do You Stop It?" at Becker's Hospital Review 11th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place on May 24-26, 2021 in Chicago.

To learn more about the conference and Debi's session, click here.

Question: What, from your perspective, is the biggest challenge about the future of work for hospitals, and what can they do about it? ( i.e. automation, desire for more flexibility, clinician shortages, etc.)

Debi Pasley: I believe the greatest challenge is spreading a limited workforce across the expanding needs for RN hours of care as well as the demands for other clinicians. The solutions will be multifactorial with optimal results being, at times, elusive. Potential solutions include shifting of models of care to include assistive personnel to support available licensed professionals. In nursing for acute care, this might look similar to the team nursing models which existed until the mid-1980s. We have learned this is a very heavy lift as many nurses who practiced such a model are no longer acute care staff nurses and those educated in the past 30 years have had no exposure to many of the critical talents and skills required to direct safe and effective care through assistive personnel. Other potential solutions include technology assistance through such methods as remote telemetry monitoring and remote telesitting. This allows available RNs to focus on where and when most needed by being alerted to escalating needs of specific patients. Eliminating those tasks which do not require RNs will allow more of the RN’s time to be spent doing what only they can do – top-of-license practice. Tasks easily reassigned to a more available and less expensive workforce include cleaning of biomedical equipment, turnover of rooms between patients, delivery and removal of food trays, stocking supplies, and transporting noncritical patients.

Q: What’s one lesson you learned early in your career that has helped you lead in healthcare?

DP: Probably the most important lesson learned which has supported my ability to provide value as a leader has been that the wisdom of teams is paramount. No matter how well-informed I may feel about a topic and my ability to plan for a desired outcome, teams of professionals working toward the same end will improve upon my initial idea every time. Over and over I have experienced success from a group’s ability to see potential pitfalls and generate creative ways to address an issue.

Q: What do you see as the most exciting opportunity in healthcare right now?

DP: I find the potential of creating entirely new systems through networking with the new kids on the block to be immensely intriguing. Having those from other industries enter healthcare provision with totally fresh trains of thought which will shake our beliefs to the core has incredible potential. Existing regulatory and accrediting agencies will, I believe, provide guardrails to help avoid recklessness in change. Those of us in the provider business today need the courage and relationship building abilities to recognize where opportunities exist to provide more care to more people at lower costs while maintaining the infrastructure to continue to offer intensive services to our most fragile.

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