Chief Nursing Officer Giancarlo Lyle-Edrosolo, DNP, RN, often scrubs in on procedures and rounds with the 3,000-plus clinicians and physicians he leads at Advocate Christ Medical Center.
Dr. Lyle-Edrosolo told Becker's that constantly working with front-line clinicians can uncover what is missing from discussions among managers and directors.
"You get the unfiltered version from the front-line and you get to really understand their issues, their concerns, what's making them joyful, what's working, what's not working," said Dr. Lyle-Edrosolo, who is also a vice president of the Oak Lawn, Ill.-based hospital. "For me to be effective in my role, I need to understand that from them.
"I wish that I could do that a lot more — Christ is a really big facility, we are an 802-bed hospital — but if I did that, I would need to have three clones of me to be able to do everything. So I just try to pepper in rounding here and there and observe with the team so that I can get to be with them."
Here is a sample daily schedule for Dr. Lyle-Edrosolo, who joined Christ in December:
Note: Advocate Christ Medical Center provided the schedule, and it is lightly edited for grammar and clarity. He adjusts his schedule to round during night shifts and meet with executives for dinners.
6:30 a.m. — Arrive at Advocate Christ Medical Center to complete morning work and check emails.
7:30 a.m. — Round in units to chat with teammates to connect on clinical nursing practice and patient care solutions, such as asking, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
9 a.m. — Workforce planning meeting with nursing directors. Connect on daily hospital operations in nursing units and progress in Christ's fifth Magnet designation.
10 a.m. — Meet with the hospital's executive leadership.
11 a.m. — Work time and lunch.
1 p.m. — Attend a celebration that honors a nursing teammate who has worked for 40 years.
1:30 p.m. — Round in surgical units and scrub in on a transcatheter aortic valve replacement procedure.
3 p.m. — Attend Professional Development Day at the hospital, which offers a chance for teammates across the hospital to find more information on career growth opportunities.
4 p.m. — Additional work and collaboration with nursing colleagues.
5:30 p.m. — Head home for CrossFit and dinner with his husband, Donnie.
What Dr. Lyle-Edrosolo calls "elbow time" taught him one of the main concerns among front-line staff: The rise of violence in hospitals.
Systemwide, security officers wear body cameras and Advocate is working on improving weapon detection technology. But based on that rounding, Dr. Lyle-Edrosolo said his hospital's policies were updated to balance empathetic care while holding patients accountable for how they treat their care teams. At Christ, staff members are taught how to respond to different situations and escalating behavior.
For example, hospital workers are trained to contact spiritual care services and the behavioral response team if someone is emotionally distraught after receiving bad news, but if another person is belligerent at the bedside, leadership and security officers are called in "to ensure and delineate role expectations and behaviors that are acceptable within the hospital," he said.
After a workplace safety event, Dr. Lyle-Edrosolo said debriefings are important so employees are assured leaders are listening to them and express the desire to reduce the risk of violence.
These changes were possible because of his personal time with front-line workers, which he said dissolves what might "look good on paper" but fall short of meeting employee's needs.
"My biggest responsibility is really making sure that we provide excellent care and patients are safe at the bedside," he said. "So when I am at the elbow with our clinicians, it gives me an opportunity to understand from them if the policies and procedures and the workflows that we have instituted makes sense."