FEATURE
to know the rules by which one can prac- tice. These include what staff members are permitted to do based on their scope of practice, what physicians can do based on their privileging, and what procedures and treatments you can offer your patients based on your ability to provide those ser- vices safely. Each state defines its own scope of practices for different positions.”
Quality Improvement Diverse Expertise Required
Today’s directors of nursing tackle a wide range of clinical and non-clinical issues BY ROBERT KURTZ
A
n ASC director of nursing wears many hats, says Kimberly
Strassner, RN, director of nursing for Brighton Surgery Center in Roches- ter, New York. “My responsibilities cover a broad range of clinical areas and I consider myself to be the eyes and ears of the ASC,” she says. “By assisting in clinical areas, it allows me to determine other areas that may need improvement as well as recog- nize employees that are going above and beyond.”
Laurie Roderiques, RN, CASC,
a former director of nursing is who is now an ASC consultant based in Sandwich, Massachusetts, says a director of nursing fills a role simi- lar to that of a quarterback on a foot- ball team. “A quarterback oversees and calls the plays for the offense to run. The director of nursing calls the plays in an ASC.”
28 ASC FOCUS JUNE/JULY 2016 Patients First
“My role is to support the advance- ment of health care through staff edu- cation and training,” says Shelley Allison, RN, director of nursing for EndoCenter, LLC, in Covington, Lou- isiana. “Making sure we deliver care that focuses on patient safety and sat- isfaction is definitely my top priority.” Whenever an event occurs that could
have potentially jeopardized safety, addressing the incident moves to the top of Allison’s to-do list. “As hard as we work to make sure mistakes are not made, incidents sometimes happen. When they do, I focus on determining why the incident occurred, how it could have been prevented and what we need to do to improve our processes so it does not happen again.”
Ensuring patient safety requires understanding standards of care, Rode- riques says. “Directors of nursing need
It might be easier to maintain the clin- ical status quo, but directors of nurs- ing strive to find ways to advance their ASC’s performance, Allison says. “One of my main focuses is finding new ways of practice and educating staff on them. I have used the ASCA Connect discussion board to ask qual- ity improvement questions of other directors of nursing and bring what I learn to my staff and physicians.” For example, Allison says her ASC
was experiencing a high number of patient cancellations and no-shows for procedures. “We conducted a small study with a few other centers I found through ASCA Connect that exam- ined why people were cancelling. We learned that if we called the patient two days before their procedure and, if they did not answer the first call, again on the day before their proce- dure, it more effectively reminded people about their appointment than if we just called the day before. This helped reduce cancellations.” Strassner
says she uses ASCA
Connect as well as ASCA benchmarking and patient surveys to identify opportu- nities for improvement. “If we get com- plaints on our surveys, I call the patients directly to learn about their experience. I use that information to implement steps to ensure that we improve patient satis- faction and care.”
Cross-Training Directors of nursing are devoting more resources toward getting their clinical staff cross-trained, Roderiques says.
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