Chair File: Leadership Dialogue — Sustaining the Nursing Workforce With Joy Parchment of the University of Central Florida

In this episode, I talk with Joy Parchment, R.N., assistant professor of nursing at the University of Central Florida. As a nurse leader, Joy has worked for health systems and in academia. She most recently served as director of nursing strategy implementation at Orlando Health and currently serves as a board member of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership.

Joy and I discuss how the field can better support nurses and nursing teams to continue building a robust workforce for the future, while overcoming challenges such as workplace violence and burnout. There are many opportunities for nurses entering the profession —including in acute care, home care, telehealth, research — and people need to know that.

Joy mentions recruiting and retaining the best nurses depend on having exemplary leaders and giving them the tools and resources they need to create and support a robust workforce. I couldn’t agree more. Joy emphasizes that in hospitals and other care sites, we must put in place “those resources and processes that will allow nurses to have the tools to be able to create that [robust] environment.” On the academic side, we need to develop “practice-ready applicants and graduates who can come into organizations and be ready to go. … It’s a two-pronged approach,” according to Joy.

We also talk about the importance of adopting technology that supports nurses, working with partners to expand education and development opportunities, and testing new models of care.

I hope you find these conversations thought provoking and useful. Look for them once a month as part of the Chair File.

Watch the episode here.