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A Personal Welcome
from Marilyn Chow, RN, DNSc, FAAN
Vice President, Patient Care Services
Welcome to Kaiser Permanente and our Nursing Pathways Web site. Much of the work we're undertaking these days in National Patient Care Services is about innovation in quality, service, and care delivery. It's about identifying best practices – both from internal and external sources – and bringing them into our organization in a systematic way. It's also about adopting these successful practices across our organization so that we can offer a superior, consistent care experience to our member and patients.
At first it may seem contrary to pair the creative aspects of innovation with systematic change. But when a good idea is born of the innovation process, tested in the workplace, and identified as a best practice, our goal is to enable each of you to consistently operate at that high level of performance across the continuum of care. Nurse Knowledge Exchange (NKE) is a recent example of this process. Front line teams across Kaiser Permanente prototyped a new approach to inpatient communication about shift change. Now we've introduced NKE Programwide so you can consistently communicate key information about patients from shift to shift. NKE was featured in the Wall Street Journal and is identified as a best practice by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).
The future of patient care continues to move toward the development of interdisciplinary teams. As such, it's even more important that nurses collaborate with different disciplines to further improve our abilities to deliver professional nursing care. Already many of our nurses, in both hospital and ambulatory settings, have participated in innovation projects through our work with IDEO, IHI, and our own Innovation Teams. Many of you have been practicing innovation informally as you go about your daily routine, looking for ways to improve the way your work is carried out.
Each of you has the potential to unleash a best practice. As you go about your daily work, take notice of what might be done better, where a process or product might be improved, or where there's a workaround because a system has become outdated. I encourage you to think creatively, to brainstorm among your colleagues, and to invite the expertise of other disciplines to help solve everyday problems that prevent you from providing the best care for our members, patients and families. Most of all, I encourage you to resist continuing to do things the same way in the hopes that they'll get better tomorrow.
As nurses, we have a long history of being advocates for our patients and their families. All of us want to provide the best and safest care to our members and to practice the profession of nursing at our highest and best potential. Innovation is a way to bridge the traditions of nursing with the technological advances that affect our profession. As we implement new technology and bring new tools to our daily work, it's critical that we remember every day what nursing practice is all about. It's that core of caring and advocacy that we must always keep in sight as we work to continually improve patient care and the practice of nursing.
I would love to hear about innovative activities happening in your workplace. Please take a moment to share examples and ideas with me through our online
feedback form .
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