Nurses' Voices donnerwheeler

In our final episode of Nurses' Voices Season Three, we speak with Angela Wignall about the impact of COVID-19 as well as the current context of care on the health human resources crisis and the urgency of investing in quality practice environments as a critical priority for health system transformation. Trauma-informed leadership is one framework that can support leaders in designing resilient systems where nurses and others in health care thrive. Through the principles of safety, trustworthiness, peer support, mutuality, empowering voice and choice, and cultural and historical factors, trauma-informed leadership aims to centre the humans who care for humans in reimagining the future of health care in Canada.

This episode focuses on how one organization is attempting to reduce documentation burden to prevent nurses’ burnout by identifying redundant or double documentation required to be completed by nurses. The goal is to reduce nurse’s workload related to documentation and information retrieval in Electronic Health Records (EHR), so that they can have more opportunities for therapeutic engagement with clients and feel less burdened by EHR. Thanks to this innovation, the time spent on issues that aren't directly related to care decreases, empowering nurses and their clinical practice to succeed.

This episode highlights the Sharing Circle, a website that was developed with the aim to improve accessibility and healthcare for Indigenous people by the Nurses Specialized in Wound, Ostomy and Continence Canada (NSWOCC) Indigenous Wound, Ostomy and Continence Health Core Program. This website is dedicated to helping patients, NSWOCs, and other healthcare professionals across Canada access a directory of resources (general and province and territory specific), education, training, and support related to Indigenous wound, ostomy and continence health.
This episode also highlights nurses who take on volunteer roles and lead health initiatives that they are passionate about.

This episode profiles nurse innovation in closing the system gap to facilitate discharges of patients on weekends to enable the right patient, right place, right care philosophy. This quality improvement initiative focused on improved multidisciplinary communication, resource utilisation and both staff and patient wellbeing. The health human resources crisis and capacity challenges in the health care system requires us to look at our challenges through a different lens, so instead of strategizing alone on attracting additions to the workforce, we as a team designed a process to reduce the capacity and therefore the workload of the team. The aim was to specifically highlight was that, with a seven day week focus we can improve discharge rates on weekends and enhance flow principles at a tertiary care hospital.

This episode highlights the L'nu Nursing Initiative (L'nu means Indigenous in the Mi'kmaw (Mi'kmaq is plural) language). The L'nu Nursing Initiative was created by the Nova Scotia Canadian Institute of Health Research Chair in Indigenous Health Nursing, Dr. Margot Latimer in collaboration with the Mi’kmaq communities in NS. As the L’nu Lead for the provincial Chair, Dawn Googoo’s role is to gather evidence that best supports Indigenous People to access culturally safe nursing education and transition to health care practice. Dawn engages with Indigenous students to support them through the nursing program and help them build pride in their future roles. The initiative also involves building capacity through collaboration with Mi'kmaq communities, educational institutions, provincial/federal governments, national organizations to create meaningful change that will continue to provide a safe and nurturing nursing learning and practice environment for Indigenous peoples.

Welcome to the premiere episode of Nurses' Voices, Season Three: Change is Possible!
This episode profiles Central Ontario’s first college standalone nursing degree program and the approaches taken for innovative curriculum design that actively engaged health care partners and subject matter experts. The aim was to ensure the curriculum met the needs of the community and that the nursing degree program closed the academic – practice gap, ultimately creating future nurses that are practice ready!