Amanda Caldwell, BSN, RN, did not intend to step into leadership, but her desire to make things better for patients and serve staff eventually drove her toward such roles.
"I always want to look at what could be, instead of the current state, and work to make the new vision a reality," she told Becker's.
Currently, Ms. Caldwell is the quality director of Cincinatti.-based Mercy Health's Toledo, Ohio, market. Here, she discusses her greatest concerns and what she is looking forward to pushing into reality.
Note: These answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: What concerns you most about the healthcare field?
Amanda Caldwell: Many things concern me, but top of the list is the aging and decreasing workforce. I find it concerning that we are losing the battle to gain healthcare workers in many disciplines. The work is so important. This is more than the medical and nursing staff and instead includes a wide variety of positions, such as environmental service workers, sterile processing workers and more. Their job is essential to patient safety, as well. We must continue as an industry to find ways to enhance the work and improve staff skills so as to ensure quality healthcare well into the future.
Q: What new technology, innovation or research are you most excited about?
AC: Artificial Intelligence in healthcare has the potential to revolutionize so many areas, such as efficiency, develop new strategies for care, standardize care and many more. All of the positive attributes of AI come with risks, namely that this is still evolving technology and there remain many issues of information verification. It is an exciting field full of hope and promise, but I encourage the industry to be very cautious concerning validity of information and the ethics related to the use of the information.
I am proud of our system for developing a team to validate different uses of AI and assure its safe, ethical and effective use. Our teams don't jump in blindly, and we don't sit back and wait for others to figure it out first. We weigh the risks and the advantages carefully and make our decision based on validated information.
Q: What's the best leadership advice you've received?
AC: There are two pieces of leadership advice that I have found most valuable:
1: Listen more than you talk. (I admit, this may be the hardest for me.) Often your brain is so full of ideas and plans, that you must make a conscious decision to not talk and just listen. You gain so much from the thoughts and ideas of others. The value of knowing the needs of others comes from listening. Also, be conscious of fully listening, using body language and other nonverbal cues to "hear" what is really being said.
2. John Maxwell says in his book "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership," "Leaders should get out of their comfort zone but stay in their strength zone." What are you best at? Spend most of your time doing that work, then you will find more personal satisfaction and success. In the areas that are not your strengths, find others who have gifts in those areas, help them grow and use their strengths; together you will build a strong team.