Advancing Professional Practice: Nursing Strategic Alignment Post Merger

Purpose:
This presentation demonstrates the importance of aligning nursing initiatives, particularly after a merger, across a health system to strengthen nursing's role in improving patient outcomes and demonstrates nursing's valuable contribution to care.

Relevance/Significance:
A 5 year plan integrates the health system's strategic framework, hospital goals, Magnet components, and the nursing professional practice model. This alignment demonstrates one organizations efforts to translate continual practice improvements into viable solutions that advance nursing professional practice and clinical care. In addition, the dissemination of the nursing strategic plan through shared governance helps to relate leadership practices to patient and nursing outcomes.

Strategy and Implementation:
After our hospital merged with a large academic health system work began on strategic alignment.Nursing recognized our capacity to influence key components of the strategic plan(SP). Nurse leaders explored opportunities for contribution to the success of the health system SP and identified 13 goals. Staff work groups whittled these down to 5 overarching goals with defined tactics with metrics. The SP, deployed through our shared governance model,assigned accountability to each tactic. Review by the nurse executive council includes accomplishments, identification of barriers, coordination of resources, and maintain momentum towards goal achievement. This innovative approach to strategic planning is evident in the defined alignment and linkage between four potentially competing initiatives. The nursing SP brings together the health system's strategic framework, hospital goals, the Magnet model, and the professional practice model into one document that provides a blueprint for success.

Evaluation:
Our continued success depends on multidisciplinary collaboration, redistribution of resources, and flexibility Year 1 highlights 78% of 33 strategies on progress to meet goal On day of discharge, 80% of patients discharged before 10:00am, 100% discharged by noon, neuro patient's length of stay reduced from 3.38 to 3.12 days, and 27% decrease in overtime expenditures with a 4% increase in volume

Implications for Practice:
This integrated nursing strategic plan is an example of exemplary professional practice. As we continue to monitor and modify our strategies and tactics, we substantiate nursing's impact on population health and improvement in health care. The aligned strategic plan highlights the value of nursing.