Nurses are the backbone of health care. Nowhere is this truer than at Memorial Hermann Health System. In ERs, ORs, ICUs and at bedsides across the health system’s 17 hospitals and dozens of ambulatory care delivery sites, Memorial Hermann nurses bring humanity to health care. With compassion, dedication and an unwavering desire to make health care better, these nurses are changing the lives of Memorial Hermann patients every day.
Memorial Hermann’s nursing program operates on a simple axiom: Nurses are health care’s most critical resource and deserve exceptional support. During the Houston Chronicle’s annual Salute to Nurses, which celebrates the region’s best nurses while highlighting the need for more frontline heroes to join the ranks, we’re exploring the benefits that make Memorial Hermann’s nursing program one of the most dynamic in the nation.
Bryan Sisk, Memorial Hermann’s Senior Vice President and System Chief Nursing Executive, and Caitlin McVey, Associate Vice President, Memorial Hermann Institute for Nursing Excellence, walk us through seven benefits of a rewarding nursing career at Memorial Hermann that are attracting the next generation of nurses.
7 Ways Memorial Hermann Offers Rewarding Nursing Careers
We’re committed to being a place where nurses thrive."
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By StoryStudio on April 22, 2024
Sponsored by Memorial Hermann
Wrap-Around Services
Caitlin McVey, Associate Vice President, Memorial Hermann Institute for Nursing Excellence
Lasting careers are made at Memorial Hermann. Wrap-around services that support nurses are a major reason why. From childcare support to tuition reimbursement to career pathways that put those interested in a nursing career on a proven path of success, Memorial Hermann’s wrap-around services are designed to offer true support for nurses when they need it most. When the pandemic laid bare a critical need for increased mental health support on health care’s frontlines, Memorial Hermann responded with Code Lilac, the hospital’s peer intervention program that brings the added support nurses need to avoid burnout.
“Code Lilac is a wonderful program,” explains Sisk. “We have relaxation rooms with dim lighting and mood music plus peer support on-call 24/7 to provide relief to our nurses when they need a break or are experiencing a tough shift.”
The Code Lilac interdisciplinary care team is made up of nurse team leaders, mental health specialists and chaplains all dedicated to improving nurse mental health. The program has been so successful, that it was expanded across all Memorial Hermann hospitals.
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Memorial Hermann’s Magnet® Designated Hospitals
The majority of Memorial Hermann’s acute-care hospitals have been awarded Magnet status by the American Nursing Association for nursing excellence and driving improvement. To obtain the coveted Magnet designation, a health care facility must exhibit excellence in five areas: transformational leadership, structural empowerment, exemplary professional practice, new knowledge and innovation and empirical outcomes.
Memorial Hermann proudly boasts eight Magnet locations, more than any other regional health care system, with one location to receive it soon, and two more in the process of earning it.
“We’re committed to being a place where nurses thrive,” says McVey. “We want to be excellent in the care that we provide to our patients and the community, and we want to be empowering in how we are uplifting staff and giving them opportunities for professional development and growth, whether that's through mentorship, succession planning, individual personal and professional development, as well.”
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Memorial Hermann’s Nurses Are the Key to Healthier Communities
Memorial Hermann views the health of its community holistically. Caring for an entire community takes committed individuals to be touchpoints between health care and patients. Each of the more than 14,000 nurses in the Memorial Hermann Health System is integral in providing care, comfort and compassion to Houston patients and their families.
“Our nurses are the champions of our culture of care,” says Sisk. “Memorial Hermann is in the top percentiles of performance because of our nurses. If you want to care with the best, you want a career at Memorial Hermann.”
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Work Where Nurse Advocacy Is Integral
Memorial Hermann believes nurses' voices need to be heard. Last year, Memorial Hermann sent 80 nurses to the Texas Capitol to speak to legislators, advocating for support on the nurse shortage. Since then, Memorial Hermann has partnered with the Texas Nursing Association to educate nurses and the public on the importance of law in health care.
“Health care is big, and it's complicated,” says Sisk. “Our nurses are incredibly well versed and well educated, so getting them aligned with the right type of advocacy efforts is not only good for the nursing profession, but it's also good for patients.”
Thanks in part to their advocacy, the Texas legislature passed three laws to make the workplace a better place for nurses.
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Have a Voice that’s Heard
Innovation in health care begins on the frontlines. At Memorial Hermann, frontline nurses meet monthly in a “congress” model to share what’s going on and focus on specific issues like innovation at the bedside. These meetings are led by the nurses themselves, giving every nurse who works at Memorial Hermann a voice in how health care is delivered.
“Our congress model is a unique feature of our nursing program,” says McVey. “Our nurses are leading conversations and taking action on the challenges facing our profession.”
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The Institute for Nursing Excellence Is Reimagining Health Care
The Memorial Hermann Institute for Nursing Excellence has a vision: to create healthier communities by cultivating an innovative health care environment that will grow by attracting and retaining top talent, reimagining care at the bedside and excelling to ensure world-class nursing for generations to come.
The Institute is centered around four main pillars: elevating the nursing profession, accelerating innovation at the bedside, strengthening the nursing workforce, and excelling in clinical and operational outcomes.
Combined, the Institute’s mission and vision are a way forward for an industry struggling to staff enough workers to meet demand. Some of its main initiatives since its inception include removing barriers to a career in health care, as well as testing new technology and new models of care, plus exploring new innovative ways to support care delivered at the bedside. The Institute played a key role in the $31 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to develop the new health education and learning high school opening this fall in partnership with Houston’s Aldine ISD.
Memorial Hermann sees the Institute for Nursing Excellence as a blueprint for other health systems to follow.
“One of the things that I love about the Institute generating new knowledge,” says McVey, “is that it doesn't just generate that new knowledge locally; it really helps spread and share that across the country and, potentially, across the globe as we all work together and learn together.”
Our nurses are the champions of our culture of care."
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Bryan Sisk, Memorial Hermann’s Senior Vice President and System Chief Nursing Executive
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Be a Part of Innovation at Memorial Hermann
Memorial Hermann nurses are leaders in the field. Memorial Hermann is the only Houston health system to participate in the Health Management Academy Nursing Catalyst Program, sending five nurse leaders to the invite-only event, which focuses on improving the workplace for nurses to retain top talent.
Recognizing that there are no easy answers, this program takes a multi-pronged approach. Memorial Hermann nurses returned with new innovations to improve care by reducing nurse workload at the bedside. These innovations included a virtual nurse pilot program using telemedicine to help ease case management. To reduce some of the administrative burden during admissions and discharges, specialized nurses use a robotic tablet on wheels to video chat with patients, allowing nurses at the bedside to focus on the hands-on nursing care components so crucial to elite patient care.
Elsewhere at the Institute’s learning space, nurse managers use hands-on simulations to give new graduate nurses the experience of critical assessments as well as time management they’ll need
to excel.
“Our organization has been transformed into a true learning and innovation space,” says McVey. “It's a really neat opportunity to tackle these shared challenges in innovative ways using a thoughtful approach and interdisciplinary care teams.”
As the largest health care employer in Houston, Memorial Hermann believes in its role to impact health equity by removing the barriers to care. The first step is to ensure the backbone of health care is there to meet the community’s needs. Expanding access to nursing careers is an invaluable way to accomplish this goal.
“I want everybody to be nurses,” Sisk says. “By opening up health care as a career to more individuals in our community, where no experience is required, we can put the nurses of tomorrow on a training pathway that will guide them to any opportunity they want.”
Learn more about a nursing career with Memorial Hermann at jobs.memorialhermann.org.