Nurse Leadership Development at Vizient Nursing Programs Conference

The scope of the Chief Nursing Officer role is changing quickly. Many CNOs are now expected to shape system strategy, workforce sustainability, and clinical outcomes across the enterprise while still supporting the realities of frontline care. That balance between operational leadership and enterprise influence is becoming one of the defining challenges in healthcare today. Looking forward to hearing Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, President of the American Nurses Association, and Heather Farley, VP of Professional Satisfaction at the American Medical Association, discuss “Bridging the divide: a unified front for clinical sustainability” at the Healthcare CNO Summit, June 1–2 at the Ritz-Carlton in Dallas. Interested to hear how other nursing leaders are navigating this shift.

In the fast pace of healthcare, we can sometimes lose sight of the reason we started. For nurses at the bedside, remember your why. The long shifts, emotional strain, and constant demands can blur the purpose, but at the core, nursing is about compassion, advocacy, and human connection. Every patient interaction is an opportunity to make a difference, even in the smallest way. As nurse leaders review people pulse survey results, it’s a powerful moment to pause and reflect on why you chose leadership. Leadership isn’t solely about operations, metrics, and outcomes. It’s about people. It’s about creating environments where nurses feel supported, heard, and empowered to provide exceptional care. Become the boss you originally sought out to be. Be the boss that they remember ( and deserve). #NurseLeadership #PeopleFirst #WorkplaceCulture #HealthcareLeadership #LeadWithPurpose

The Joint Commission just made one of the most meaningful shifts we’ve seen in years, and it’s going to reshape how hospitals think about nursing care. Starting January 2026, staffing is now a National Performance Goal. Not ratios. Not a suggested guideline. A formal accreditation expectation that hospitals must be staffed (and staffed competently) to meet real‑time patient needs. What stands out most is the accountability shift: Nurse executives are now explicitly responsible for directing and validating safe staffing. This elevates staffing from an operational challenge to a leadership‑level, accreditation‑level priority. For those of us who work closely with nurse leaders every day, this isn’t surprising. The gap between what staffing should be and what staffing actually is has been widening for years. This update simply brings that reality into the spotlight. But it also raises an important question for 2026 and beyond: 👉 How are organizations preparing to demonstrate safe, competency‑based staffing, not just on paper, but in practice? As I talk with clinical leaders across the country, the answers vary widely. Some are redesigning care models. Some are investing in leadership pipelines. Others are still figuring out where to start. I’d love to hear from those in the field: What strategies are you putting in place now to meet this new expectation? #NextEraRecruiting #JCNPG

The Joint Commission just made one of the most meaningful shifts we’ve seen in years, and it’s going to reshape how hospitals think about nursing care. Starting January 2026, staffing is now a National Performance Goal. Not ratios. Not a suggested guideline. A formal accreditation expectation that hospitals must be staffed (and staffed competently) to meet real‑time patient needs. What stands out most is the accountability shift: Nurse executives are now explicitly responsible for directing and validating safe staffing. This elevates staffing from an operational challenge to a leadership‑level, accreditation‑level priority. For those of us who work closely with nurse leaders every day, this isn’t surprising. The gap between what staffing should be and what staffing actually is has been widening for years. This update simply brings that reality into the spotlight. But it also raises an important question for 2026 and beyond: 👉 How are organizations preparing to demonstrate safe, competency‑based staffing, not just on paper, but in practice? As I talk with clinical leaders across the country, the answers vary widely. Some are redesigning care models. Some are investing in leadership pipelines. Others are still figuring out where to start. I’d love to hear from those in the field: What strategies are you putting in place now to meet this new expectation? #NextEraRecruiting #JCNPG

As a relatively new nurse manager, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the administrative duties and tasks that come with the role. However, I’ve discovered that my staff truly appreciates my leadership presence on the unit. They know that I’m available, but making my presence visible not only shows support but also provides a sense of tangible structure within the unit dynamics. Every Leader should make their leadership prescense and leadership foot print visible. #GrowingInLeadership #NursingLeadership #Leader365 #MakeYourPresenceKnown

I agree 100%. I always believed managers supervisors and other have no clue what an open door policy is all about!

Staff don’t want to come find you, they need you to come and find them. Then, once they consistently see you, they will trust you enough to tell you what is really going on.

Safe staffing is getting a lot of attention right now. And for good reason. Under the updated Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goals, specifically Goal #12 around Health Professional Resource Management, organizations are being asked to demonstrate that their workforce systems support safe care delivery. That conversation goes far beyond vacancy rates. Leaders are being asked to show: • How new nurses are stabilized • How preceptors are prepared • How competency is validated • How workforce readiness is consistently supported In other words, safe staffing is becoming a systems conversation, not just a numbers conversation. So on March 11, we’re bringing together a perspective that rarely happens in the same room. I’ll be hosting a live executive discussion with: Rhonda Anderson, RN Former Commissioner, The Joint Commission Dawna Cato, PhD., RN, NPD-BC Director, OpusVi Nurse Residency Programs We’ll be talking openly about what safe staffing and workforce readiness really mean in practice. If you’re a healthcare leader navigating these questions, I invite you to join us. And if you know other leaders across healthcare who should be part of this conversation, please share this post so they see it as well. Registration link: ➡️ https://lnkd.in/g3CtTR9j #NursingLeadership #HealthcareExecutives #JointCommission #SafeStaffing #HospitalLeadership #WorkforceStrategy

What if the biggest untapped lever in primary care isn’t more resources…but better design? Last week, I had the privilege of co-leading a design workshop at the UBC CHSPR 38th Annual Health Policy Conference with the inimitable Patti Telford RN, MHS, AIO, PMP, focused on something we don’t talk about nearly enough: 👉 How we design nursing work. Not job descriptions. Not task lists. Design. Because at Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of British Columbia, here’s the reality we’re seeing across the system: ➡️ Nursing roles are often under-designed and over-relied on ➡️ Work or roles get added in, not intentionally built ➡️ Despite decades of strong evidence, implementation of nursing roles remains fragmented and inconsistent So we shifted the question. Instead of asking: “What tasks should nurses do?”, we asked: “What does the patient journey need and how do we design nursing roles to meet it?” Through journey mapping, workflow design, and real-world scenarios from chronic disease to mental health, we saw something powerful emerge: ✨ Clarity replacing role ambiguity ✨ Flow replacing care fragmentation ✨ Purpose replacing task accumulation And maybe most importantly: joy! There is something deeply energizing about watching people connect the dots that lead us back to the WHY of healthcare, and then redesign it together in a way that actually makes sense for patients, providers, and the system. This is the work of modern health leadership. Not just managing scarcity. Not always advocating for more. But designing better. Because when we intentionally design nursing roles around patient experience, team function, and system outcomes, we move closer to better care, better work lives, and sustainable healthcare systems. And that’s the future of primary care. Grateful to my dear colleague Patti and the diverse attendees who leaned into this work with openness, insight, and creativity. This is what systems transformation looks like in practice. This is the work we do at NNPBC every day to advance systems change through nursing excellence. #NursingLeadership #PrimaryCare #HealthSystemTransformation #DesignThinking #HealthcareInnovation #QuintupleAim #Leadership

Chicago, here we come ✈️ We’re heading to AONL with something we’re really excited about. Across the country, nurse leaders are telling us the same thing: documentation burden is real, and it’s pulling attention away from patients. So we built something different. At Booth #883, we’ll be sharing our new ambient listening technology inside CipherRounds, designed to handle rounding documentation in the background so nurses can stay focused on care. → Less friction → More presence → Richer insight for leaders If you’ll be at American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL), we’d love to see you.