Cody C. Stansel, MSN, RN, NE-BC, OCN, CMSRN, serves as Interim Director of Nursing at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Cody will serve at the summit "The Rise of True Efficiency: An Executive Summit on the Transformation of Hospital Operations" at Becker's Hospital Review 12th 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 in Chicago from April 25-28, 2022.
To learn more about the conference and Cody's session, click here.
Q: What are your top priorities for 2022?
Cody Stansel: My top priorities for 2022 are staff retention and patient flow. As is the case with much of the country we have a lot of competition when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff. Nurses in particular have a lot of opportunities to do new and exciting things and it can be difficult to compete with the attractive lifestyle and pay that some of them offer. Keeping staff engaged in their workplace and addressing their concerns is at the top of my list. Patient flow is another area I’m working on. Our patient volume is continuously growing so we are constantly thinking about how we can gain operational efficiencies and make the most of the space that we have.
Q: How do you plan to pivot strategies this year to better serve patients?
CS: Working with an oncology patient population we often see that patients run into difficulties finding transportation to make it to their provider appointments or to their treatments. This is especially difficult for patients trying to make it to a location in a metropolitan area when they are commuting from the suburbs or outlying areas. By building clinics within our local communities, we will be able to reduce the burden on our patients and open up capacity in our very busy metropolitan locations.
Q: What will the lasting legacy of COVID-19 be on the healthcare system?
CS: It’s difficult to pick out one thing that will be a lasting change from COVID-19. Healthcare has long been viewed as a career field with job security and one in which people would never get laid off, but when COVID struck we did see medical professionals getting laid off and unable to work. I think as a result of this many systems learned that they must be adaptable and find ways to shift the work that their teams are performing in order to maintain operations. I think most healthcare systems are going to have more robust contingency plans in place so that they are prepared to shift care delivery to face challenges in situations where staff have to be re-trained and re-allocated to face crisis.
Q: What advice do you have for emerging healthcare leaders today?
CS: I think finding a mentor is extremely important for new leaders. Whether you are coming from a clinical background or are fresh out of school it is important that you find someone that you can learn from. A good mentor can help you to identify your weaknesses and ways to strengthen yourself in those areas. It is also helpful to have someone that you can talk through difficult situations with. Even if they haven’t dealt with your exact same situation, they probably have advice to offer that will be of benefit.