Strategic Visioning: Leadership

Motivate, Innovate, Celebrate: an innovative shared governance model through the establishment of continuous quality improvement (CQI) councils was implemented across the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC). The model leverages agent-specific knowledge at the point of care and provides a structure aimed at building human resources capacity and sustaining enhancements to quality and safe care delivery. Interprofessional and cross-functional teams work through the CQI councils to identify, formulate, execute and evaluate CQI initiatives. In addition to a structure that facilitates collaboration, accountability and ownership, a corporate CQI Steering Committee provides the forum for scaling up and spreading this model. Point-of-care staff, clinical management and educators were trained in LEAN methodology and patient experience-based design to ensure sufficient knowledge and resources to support the implementation.

The Ontario Public Health Organizational Standards require boards of health to designate a Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) by January 2013. To facilitate the implementation of this requirement, a Public Health Chief Nursing Officer Working Group was established, jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC), the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) and ANDSOOHA - Public Health Nursing Management (ANDSOOHA), with representation from the Council of Medical Officers of Heath (COMOH); public health Chief Executive Officers (CEOs)/Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) and Business Administrators; Ontario Nurses Association; current CNOs/senior nurse leaders; and the ministries of Health Promotion and Sport (MHPS) and Children and Youth Services (MYCS). 

 

The Working Group’s objectives included identifying and documenting role and requirements for public health CNOs and CNO implementation experiences and strategies. It developed recommendations on CNO role and requirements to provide information and guidance to boards of health and to foster greater consistency of the CNO role in public health units across the province. The recommendations were informed by literature reviews, the expert opinion of current public health CNOs and nurse leaders and an understanding of the public health context. The recommended CNO role incorporates the themes of Nursing Practice Quality Assurance and Continuous Quality Improvement, Nursing Leadership, and Organizational Effectiveness. The CNO requirements outline professional requisites and minimum levels of experience and education for CNO designates. 

Community Health Nurses of Canada (CHNC) provides a unified voice to represent and promote community health nursing and the health of communities. In carrying out its mandate, CHNC funded several initiatives to explore various aspects of community health nursing. Other funding bodies also provided similar research support in community health nursing. 

 

The purpose of this report is to synthesize the findings and recommendations of recent reports relevant to community health nursing. In turn, this synthesis will provide a platform for the Community Health Nurses of Canada (CHNC) and relevant national policy makers to plan a course of action designed to improve health outcomes for people living in Canadian communities. 

RNAO is speaking out against actions being taken in some hospitals across Ontario. The association is gravely concerned about proposed nursing staffing models that – disguised under other names – take us back to “team nursing.” 

 

In our correspondence and meetings with health-care organizations, we have been sharing the importance of nursing staffing models that secure continuity of care and continuity of caregiver, using RNs for the total nursing care of unstable patients with unpredictable outcomes, and RPNs for the total nursing care of stable patients with predictable outcomes.