Thank you for your courage, care, and compassion; for being the nurse that you are. You have all preserved through the most challenging times and yet you are still there for each other, your organizations, the Nursing Consortium and for Nursing. Please remember, especially during difficult days in your roles, that what you do every day is appreciated. You all keep the wheels on the bus for your organizations. You are role models for our profession as we continue to meet the challenges for caring for our communities. I am honored to know you all and call you my colleagues.

Happy Nurses Week!

Jean

Jean B. Seaver, MSN, RN

President

Nursing Consortium of Florida

Don't miss the Consortium's next Conference...Cultivating the Dimensions of Powerful Partnerships; Advancing Nursing Academia & Practice Leadership

Friday, June 23, 2023 at the Signature Grand in Davie, FL

Join us as the Nursing Consortium of Florida convenes leading and emerging nurse leaders from academic and practice settings for a day focused on the critical importance of collegiality and collaboration to the advancement of the nursing profession. The program will include a poster session, keynote presentation, and panel discussion in the morning. The afternoon will feature a number of concurrent sessions allowing attendees to focus on the topics of greatest professional relevance while building relationships with colleagues that have shared interests. The day will also include ample opportunities for interaction with attendees and conference sponsor representatives over breakfast, breaks, and lunch. Don’t miss what is certain to be a truly exceptional educational conference and networking opportunity beginning at 8:00 am and concluding at 4:30 pm.

and executive nursing roles. Throughout his career, he has focused on enabling the delivery of exceptional patient and family experiences through innovation, education, and nursing excellence, and he is currently responsible for helping Press Ganey clients transform their patient and caregiver experience.  Don’t miss what is certain to be an exceptional educational and networking opportunity. To register before the next price increase, please click here.  To become a program sponsor, please click here.

The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce invites you to attend its 2023 Health Care Heroes® Awards Luncheon featuring a special tribute to Hurricane Ian first responders and the presentation of Awards in the categories of Lifetime Achievement, Health Care Professional, Individual of Merit, Organization/Program, Nurse, First Responder, and Youth Volunteer. The finalists for the Nurse Award are Guerna Blot, Director of Nursing at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Joseph Falise, Director of Nursing, Critical Care & Progressive Care at University of Miami Hospital, and Tami Thomas, Associate Dean, Research and  the Director of PhD Nursing Program  at the FIU Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing & Health Sciences.  The Nursing Consortium of Florida is a GMCC Trustee Member and was instrumental in establishing the award program's nurse category more than a decade ago. Congratulations to all the honorees; amazing everyday heroes in our community!  For additional information or to register, please click here.

Meet the Consortium Officers:

W. Jason Dunne, President-elect

As chair of the Consortium's Youth Engagement Committee, Jason faced a pandemic forced end to the twenty year run of the Nursing Consortium of Florida's acclaimed Day in the Life of a Nurse™ program which had annually welcomed as many as 1,000 public high school students from Miami Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties to host hospitals and schools of nursing.  Instead Jason solicited video contributions from member organizations, and led the creation of a two-week long virtual experience, consisting of interactive and curated video content for teachers to share with students learning remotely rather than in classroom settings.  The virtual Day in the Life of a Nurse™ experience reached more than 5,000 middle and high school students.  Once students returned to the classroom changes were made to the content to facilitate optimized in-classroom experiences to reach greater numbers of students than could be accommodated for in-person experiences at member hospitals and schools of nursing. a strong believer in community service and has served on a variety of voluntary board and advisory positions including the National League for Nursing Awards Committee, Nurses on Boards Coalition State and National Integrated Strategies Work Group, and others. He has been a nurse for 23 years.

More than 30 percent of nurses in the United States say they intend to leave their current jobs in direct patient care in the next year. So, what can healthcare organizations do to address this turnover while attracting others to the nursing profession?  In a new article, McKinsey’s Gretchen Berlin, Faith Burns,  Meredith Lapointe, , Connor Essick, and Mhoire Murphy share the latest data from McKinsey’s frontline nursing survey, which offers insights on the experiences, needs, preferences, and career intentions of nurses in the United States and propose what can be done to address their needs through short-, medium-, and longer-term strategies. Please click here for more.

When the hottest topics in healthcare are the downward spiral of provider burnout and staffing shortages, it's time for healthcare organizations to adopt an improvement mindset with two complimentary goals. According to Patrick Horine vice president, acute care services at Accreditation Commission for Health Care. the first is to find incremental innovations that can drive meaningful improvements in solving known problems. The second is to find innovation by engaging the abundant superpowers that your staff already possesses but that are being largely ignored.  Please click here for more.

Violence prevents nurses, doctors and other professionals from providing uninterrupted, quality patient care, according to Andrew Thum, the director of nursing workforce operations at Jefferson Health in Philadelphia and a doctor of nursing practice candidate in the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania.  Please click here for more.

Bristol (Conn.) Health dramatically reduced recorded incidents of workplace violence within just three years by upgrading their incident reporting system, boosting prevention education, supporting employees and forging an organization-wide culture of safety. Please click here for more.

The Senate Finance Committee recently held a hearing on removing barriers to mental health care, with a focus on improving provider directory accuracy. Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., released a study by the committee's majority staff in which secret shoppers were able to get an appointment for depression using provider directories for 12 Medicare Advantage plans only 18% of the time. “Today, Medicare performs regular audits of plans offering coverage to seniors to ensure they meet minimum standards,” Wyden said. “However, CMS does not regularly audit Medicare Advantage provider directories, and the results speak for themselves. It’s time for that to change.”

After reviewing a record 38,000 comments on proposed rules limiting telehealth prescriptions for buprenorphine and other controlled substances after the COVID-19 public health emergency, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Health and Human Services has announced that they “have decided to extend the current flexibilities while we work to find a way forward to give Americans that access with appropriate safeguards.” 

Women are strongly represented at the entry level in healthcare but are still underrepresented in more senior roles, according to analysis by McKinsey & Company senior partner Gretchen Berlin and colleagues. Women account for 75 percent of entry-level jobs in the sector but just 32 percent of C-suite positions. For women of color, representation at the C-suite level is just 4 percent.  Please click here for more.

Hospital and health system margins improved slightly in March, but continue to sit at “razor-thin, near-zero levels,” putting hospitals in a vulnerable position should a recession or a new public health emergency materialize, according to the latest report on hospital finances by Kaufman Hall.

An unprecedented number of people have enrolled in Medicaid since the COVID-19 pandemic began. As states resume normal eligibility determinations, what will happen when the emergency declaration ends? With support from RWJF, analysts at Urban Institute estimate how the expiring protections will affect Medicaid enrollment, where uninsured people could find coverage, and who is at greatest risk for losing coverage.  Please click here for the report.

Supported by RWJF, the State Health & Value Strategies program at Princeton University created a one-stop resource to support states as they plan for and implement unwinding. The comprehensive resource showcases strategies that states may be interested in adopting and highlight how states are leveraging federal flexibilities.  Please click here for more.

In one of the last acts Friday, the Florida House and Senate approved a $117 billion state budget backed by a $1.3 billion package of tax cuts.  Please click here for more.

Home health providers are challenging a proposed rule by CMS requiring states to allocate 80% of Medicaid HCBS funding to caregiver wages.  Please click here for more.

Board of Directors