There is a lot of variety in nursing. Whether it’s the different areas they work, the credentials behind their name or the different work attire they wear.
However, something that remains the same, no matter if the nurse provides direct patient care at the bedside or not, is providing care.
The reason for each person to transition from the bedside to an administration role can differ.
For Deb Bass, medical staff advisor, her nursing career took her everywhere from medical/surgical, cardio-pulmonary, oncology, bone marrow transplant to home health care, all at Nebraska Medicine. She would later work as a manager in Employee Health from 1999 through 2002, before finding her current home at Medical Staff Services.
“During that time, the hospital contacted me to interview for the Medical Staff Office manager position. They were restructuring management positions at the time and I was being let go,” Bass recalls. “I couldn’t imagine why they would need a nurse in that position, but they asked if I would consider taking on the challenge. I loved working here and wanted to remain at the organization.”
Today, Bass serves as the medical staff advisor for Nebraska Medical Center and Bellevue. She’s responsible for the day-to-day operations of both organized medical staffs, including development and assessment of practitioner privileges, monitoring a variety of compliance requirements that involve the medical staff. In addition, she processes incident reports involving medical staff, advanced practice practitioners, and facilitates their review by practitioner quality committee, medical staff leadership and chief medical officer.
Lisa Kinney, clinical quality lead, worked as a nurse on a medical surgical unit at another health system in Omaha and then was a traveling nurse for a couple more years, before coming to Nebraska Medicine.
“I decided I wanted to use the knowledge I developed during my time traveling nursing to work at improving processes within one health care system,” says Kinney.
Currently, Kinney is a clinical quality lead for Quality and Patient Safety. She works to improve hospital metrics such as surgical site infections and Bellevue’s mortality index. Kinney also provides guidance for department leaders at Bellevue when they are working on process improvement projects.
Adrienne Sy also works as a clinical quality lead in Quality and Patient Safety, with her focus being on quality improvement in catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs). Prior, Sy was as a nurse on 5 West, where quality improvement was always on her mind in all she did.
“I am kind of a data nerd, and our Quality Department is big on making data-driven decisions,” says Sy. “I started looking into a master’s program in health care administration, and when I was clicking through to see what kind of jobs I could do at our organization with that kind of education, this position was posted. I felt an instant pull and decided to make the jump.”
Bass credits her nursing background in helping in her current role.
“I use my nursing knowledge in the development of privileges and criteria to ensure we have the most qualified and competent practitioners coming into our facilities,” she says. “I work closely with different units in addressing concerns with medical staff members and how to handle these situations. When talking with physicians, the ability to speak the same language has been of great value in my position.”
Kinney’s nursing background has provided advantages in her current role.
“I have clinical knowledge that allows me to find documentation opportunities when completing mortality case reviews,” she says. “I also have greater insight in medical knowledge when helping departments with process improvement projects.”
For Sy, she still feels she’s taking care of patients but in a different way.
“In the past year, we have started Round Ups, where I sit down with units and my Infection Prevention teammates with each CAUTI and CLABSI,” she says. “During these Round Ups, we discuss our deep-dive findings, like what went well and what some areas of opportunity were. My goal for next year is to find a way to be there even more so for bedside nurses with CAUTIs and CLABSIs, especially in terms of prevention.”
When some hear or think of patient care, they may only think of the direct care patients receive. However, colleagues all across the organization play a role.
For Bass, she says Medical Staff Services is the gatekeeper to patient safety.
“Part of my job is to ensure the medical staff are receiving the materials they need to make recommendations on new and existing practitioners to ensure our staff is the caliber of providers we need at Nebraska Medicine to provide Serious Medicine, Extraordinary Care to our patients,” she says.
Kinney retrospectively looks at patient care to identify trends and themes that affects patients.
“By having experience working as a bedside nurse, I know what it’s like to work with patients and understand what they go through, so I keep that in mind when discussing workflow that will impact them,” she says
No matter the job title or role, once a nurse always a nurse.
“I always had the mindset that each patient is someone’s loved one,” says Sy. “Even though, I don’t work at the bedside, I feel like I am still helping someone’s loved one in some way.”