Changing times require a change in mindset. 

 

Episode Introduction 

The pandemic forced health systems to explore new ways of delivering care and education. Rhone shares the benefits of LinkedIn as a mindset platform, the skills unique to Nursing Practitioners and how students in search of preceptorships can benefit by taking the ‘’cookie basket to the clinic’’. He also explains why telepsychiatry provides patients a safe space and extols the power of servant leadership. 

 

Show Topics

 

• Changing your mindset: LinkedIn as a daily platform 
• Overcoming the stigma of online learning for Nurse Practitioners
• Responding to the preceptorships crisis 
• The benefits of hiring Nurse Practitioners
• Telehealth is a mindset shift 
• Leadership lessons – getting in front of the problem

 

 

12:31 Changing your mindset: LinkedIn as a daily platform

Rhone described how LinkedIn provides a platform to highlight the benefits of changing your mindset. 

‘’….. it kind of reflects probably what my true passion really is and it's teaching, it's coaching, it's advising, it's helping others, all high performing professionals, but especially nurses, nurse practitioners, to really find their true profession and their true passion and where they want to go in their profession. So basically in LinkedIn, I just started writing, it's my daily writing platform, and I got to the point where I just want to write about what I'm just obsessed about, and I'm obsessed about nurses leveraging our skills and ability and our knowledge to become creators in this digital era because we have this whole new world to us and there's so much burnout and stress and pain among healthcare professionals. And I'm not trying to pull anybody away from the bedside, I honor the bedside, it's a necessary position. I honor those that are doing it, but I just want to make sure that I am illustrating to my audience options. And, the main start is you have to change your mindset, that's where it all begins. All the technology, all the toys, all the tricks are not going to do you a bit of good until you really change that mindset and say, "Hey, not only can I do this, but I have so many resources as a nurse or any healthcare professional, that there's a whole world out there that would love to take advantage of that knowledge, and I have this tunnel vision that all I can do is bedside, administration, education." So, that's really all about. So I post on LinkedIn, I post pretty much every day. I invite anybody that wants to follow along, please do. I talk about mindset. I talk about very tactical tricks and tips on how to promote yourself online, how to find your niche, how to build an online business, those sorts of subjects.’’

 

 

15:55 Overcoming the stigma of online learning for Nursing Practitioners 

Rhone said that the pandemic ‘’normalized’’ online learning and the didactic portion is delivered online. 

‘’But in terms of delivering our didactics online, communicating online, using Zoom, using online learning management systems, we were ready to go at the graduate nursing program and we were ready to really bring that skillset, and we were kind of the bullied kid in the corner that got to say, "Hey, now you need us. Now you need online education." And so what I would say mainly, especially to employers, to hospital systems, there's always been sort of a stigma about online. And, we've had to defend that and a little bit less now because of COVID, honestly, because so many people did it and it got normalized, but I will say don't necessarily be frightened off by that online if you see that related to a graduate school. Like all education programs, there can be some variance in quality. We have accreditation programs that really work to make sure that that variance in quality is very narrow. We always work to have high quality graduates. And then within all the schools I've ever worked, there is strong quality improvement mindsets involved there. So, your one big trend though is that nurse practitioner education, to the large extent, not 100%, but to a large extent, the didactic portion is delivered online. And, what that's led to also is an explosion of nurse practitioner programs because you don't have quite the same capital investment cost to build a new building when you can deliver so much of your didactic education online. Now, that's of course, this is market forces we know on the business side. So, now we have a pretty large pool of nurse practitioners, primarily family nurse practitioners, that's why a lot of them went to the psych NP route as a post-master's, but now we're seeing that with psych too.’’

 

 

20:19 Responding to the preceptorship crisis

Rhone offered advice for clinics inundated by calls from NP students for preceptorships. 

‘’That's the bottom line. Nurses, nurse practitioners, physician associates, physicians, we all need to learn by actual patient interactions. Some of these clinics are getting hundreds of calls a day from nurse practitioner students from around the country because a student may be in that area, but they're actually attending a program where the didactics are offered online, so the headquarters of the program could be in another state. So, these clinics are being inundated with student requests for preceptorships, and it really is a crisis because it's such a struggle. I don't know that there's not enough placements for everybody. I tend to think it's a systems issue, and that's where I think the solution's going to come, where if you're not properly distributing your asks, that's where trouble comes up. Now, the university I work with right now does an excellent job of that, previous university did as well, of having a really active placement coordinator that is being very mindful. Okay, I've already asked this site. They said no way, so I'm not going to bother. I asked, this site's taking three students, I'm not going to keep asking them because I've kind of filled them up. Here's a new one, maybe I'll reach out to them. And, what I tried to do in my roles is really teach some of that biz dev, teach them business development to the universities and that mindset of like, "Don't just call with an ask. Take that cookie basket to the clinic and not just the cookie basket, sell them on it." Our students are very qualified, they're very well supervised by their faculty. This could be an opportunity for you to grow your own staffing, et cetera. You have to have some sales and some strategy to get that, but the bottom line is we have a lot of students, and we don't necessarily have enough clinical placements, at least in a way that's efficient, and it's just becoming more and more of an issue, and it will continue as more and more students enter these programs.’’

 

23:34 The benefits of hiring Nurse Practitioners

Rhone said that NPs offer both clinical and interpersonal skills for hospitals.

‘’Absolutely, and I think that's a great question and I think as nurse practitioners, we have to lead with our value. You always lead with the value you bring. So, nurse practitioners have been providing safe and reliable and evidence-based excellent patient care for well over 40 years now. I think we're going on 50 years since the foundation of our profession. So when you hire a nurse practitioner, you're hiring someone that has some registered nurse experience to some degree. It can be a relatively small amount, it can be many, many years, but you have somebody that is comfortable with that fundamental patient interaction. I think that's really the advantage you're getting as an employer. You're getting a clinical expert, someone who is trained to perform clinically in whatever specialty they're being hired into, but they also have that human connection that's offered by a nurse, the ability to make that interpersonal connection with your patients. That's the mindset we come to it as nurses. So, I don't bring in a bunch of comparisons to other professions. I honor all healthcare professions and the roles we play, but I do know that nurse practitioners bring very real value in terms of quality focus on patient care, efficiency, and really making that human connection to ensure that our patients are healing and able to live their best possible life.’’

 

 

26:53 Telehealth is a mindset shift

Rhone said that telehealth is integral to healthcare and help with maintaining appropriate boundaries.  

‘’ I tell my students as they come through that and as they're graduating, and this kind of comes back to my coaching, advising mindset, I say, "Listen, A, don't try to hide that you did some of your clinical work via telehealth and don't be ashamed of it. You need to put that front and center and say, 'In my nurse practitioner program, I specifically learned the best practices of telehealth and I actually practiced in that modality for a portion of my clinical experience.'" So, again, it's mindset shift. That's something to brag about because I was assigning assignments about, tell me the best way to deliver a neurological exam via telehealth. You only have telehealth available, you need to perform a neurological exam, what are you going to do? And they would do research, go into the literature, and come back. So, we learned about that telehealth and there's lots of literature out there showing what incredible patient outcomes we've had. I have a great rapport with my patients via telepsychiatry. In telepsychiatry specifically, I think there's a benefit to it because a lot of what we deal in psychiatry, especially with our most vulnerable populations, which is what I deal with, there's a lot of boundary issues. And being physically in front of a healthcare provider can be very, very intimidating or triggering or anxiety-inducing in some psychiatric clients. And so this telehealth, they really open up to me because they're safe, and I meet the requirements of that eye-to-eye, face-to-face contact initially, but I always tell them, listen, once I've established your identity, I've talked to you face-to-face, I can see that everything's appropriate, and I've made my assessment, you can turn off your camera if you want, or if you'd feel better, I'll turn off my camera if it's in any way intimidating to have me looking at you, whatever makes you comfortable.’’

 

31:33 Leadership lessons – getting in front of the problem 

Rhone said the key factor for all successful leaders is to get in front of the problem and address it. 

 

‘’And, I think that's probably my number one leadership lesson. I'm a huge believer in servant leadership. I've done all the leadership trainings everybody's done. I've done the leadership academy. I actually got my doctor of nursing practice in executive leadership. I've trained leaders, so I know a lot of... It's a whole industry and there's a lot of terminology involved, but when it really comes down to it, as a leader, you just can't flinch from the tough decisions and the tough conversations. And it is so rewarding, and it makes your life so much better when you're able to just get in front of whatever situation it is. So, is it a client? Because sometimes my clients would be some relatively grumpy CEOs. Honestly, it was the COOs. The CEOs would be nice, the COO would call you like, "We have an issue with your staffing. We need to talk right now." And I just learned, you just need to get right there and get on top of it. You can't hide and put yourself in those positions. I think leadership is a wonderful path. I think working your way up, it takes you to a whole other level when you can be a very, very skilled individual contributor. And if you choose to be that individual contributor for your entire career, I definitely honor that path, but if you choose to go into leadership, it is kind of as you mentioned, an entirely different skillset. It is you are not doing things personally, you need to inspire those that are around you, that you supervise, that are your clients to do their jobs to the very best possible, and you need to tell them what their jobs are. You need to give them good job descriptions. You need to learn how to hire, you need to learn how to discipline. There's a lot to it, but the main factor of all successful leaders that I've ever known is just that ability to get right in front of the problem and address it.’’

 

 

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You’ll also hear:

Rhone’s career journey, from early beginnings as a teenager working in a restaurant, to full-time associate professor in the graduate nursing program at Rasmussen University. 

 

How we can change our mindset while we’re waiting for systems to change. ‘’It's that mindset of your team, it's that mindset of your leadership, of don't fall into those same kind of ruts.’’

 

Insights into how employers can always find quality NP candidates. ‘’It takes some good interviewing and making sure that you know what you're looking for to make sure you get the absolute best NP candidates for whatever position you're hiring for.’’

Why telehealth is a mindset shift ‘’…there’s just an enormous amount of opportunity, and especially for healthcare systems where you're dealing with staffing crises….Folks didn't want to move (to rural areas) so we would do as much as we could via telehealth…that was a very innovative way that we approached some of those issues.’’

 

 

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