Innovation units may become nursing standard

Mercy Senior Vice President and CNE Betty Jo Rocchio, DNP, RN, believes its nursing innovation unit may become standard practice in nursing. The St. Louis-based system started the unit to develop ideas, technologies and concepts to improve the front-line nursing experience and patient quality. Its goals are to streamline electronic health record charting, decrease nurse workload and standardize a patient’s care for the clinical team, while improving employee well-being and retention rates. Mercy halved its turnover from a pandemic high of 28% by adequately staffing units and reducing obstacles preventing them from focusing on patient care, said AONL member Rocchio. Mercy soon will launch a workload assessment tool to automatically make nurse assignments based on the workload of their patients. (HealthLeaders Media article, 12/4/23)