As chief nursing officer of Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, Christy Grabus makes it a point to be as accessible as possible to front-line nursing staff.
Rounding, joining staff meetings and quick, scheduled check-ins are central to her leadership style at the Woodbridge, Va.-based hospital, she told Becker's.
"One of my favorite things to do is round," Ms. Grabus said. "It's an opportunity to get to know your team better. It's also an opportunity to get to know patients better and just get a really good idea of what's going on from a big picture perspective, and figure out what [nurses] need."
It's this approach that recently earned her what she called the complement of her career: "Our Magnet appraisers shared that our nurses here define me as a 'nurse's nurse,'" Ms. Grabus said. "I really can't think of a better complement."
SNVMC recently earned its first Magnet designation and is one of 11 hospitals in the U.S. so far to have achieved the Magnet with Distinction recognition — a special designation program the American Nurses Credentialing Center created to honor the top performing Magnet organizations in the world.
As part of the Magnet application process, the hospital submitted examples of nurse-led changes that improved care delivery, efficiency and job satisfaction. In one case, Ms. Grabus was rounding on the hospital's intermediate unit when a nurse asked whether it was possible to add windows to the doors of patient rooms. Previously, nurses had been keeping the doors open to have an easy line of sight to patients, which can be a barrier to patient privacy and pose an infection risk during infectious disease outbreaks.
Ms. Grabus took the feedback to the hospital's facilities department and got new doors in play.
Such improvements may seem small or mundane, but they add up over time to improve nurses' workflow.
"They're really big to them because when you think about how many times [nurses] do something over and over in a day, it can lead to delays in getting procedures done or time spent with patients, just depending on what the barrer may be," Ms. Grabus said.
While she can't accept every calendar invite that comes her way, Ms. Grabus said she prioritizes dropping into a meeting even if it's only for a few minutes to give nurses the opportunity to ask questions or share concerns. Throughout her 16 years in executive leadership roles, Ms. Grabus said this has been invaluable in establishing trust with staff, who in turn are more comfortable bringing up ideas or concerns.
"That would be my advice – is to make yourself available and make opportunities available to really be able to hear your team," she said.