Welcome
Welcome to my Nusing Salon
A few years ago I stepped down as president of Creative Health Care Management, a health care consulting firm I founded in the 1970s. I looked forward to letting go of the things I had to do and being able to take more time for the things I want to do.
One of the things I love is having more time to talk with nurses about nursing. I host a nursing salon where people who care about nursing gather once a month. We share a meal and talk about whatever is on our minds. It gives me…and all of us…a chance to look at our own experiences and the stories other people share see the patterns…see where we have been and where we might be going.
Lately, I have been feeling a sea change…not just in nursing, but in health care and society as a whole. In 2005 I gave a speech at the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Conference. My topic was Leadership for Relationship-Based Care. I spoke on the need for clear roles, healthy interpersonal relationships, and adequate, appropriate resources and the basic values of nursing. The response was overwhelming…people were so excited about what I had to say.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t say anything I hadn’t said a hundred, a thousand times over the years.
My message hasn’t changed, but the times have.
I believe now is the time for people who care about health care and the core values of nursing to come together and talk. Nurse execs and faculty and staff nurses and managers and students all need to talk to each other. We need to talk about where is nursing going, about what leaders need to do, about the science behind how we care for people. We need to help nursing find its voice and we need to make that voice heard. The conversation that began in my dining room with good food and good friends needs to expand…everyone needs to have a place at the nursing salon. So I have started this blog. I don’t know where it will lead, but I can’t wait to find out.
Hello, tomorow I will be meeting with members from the Magnet team at our hospital. We are a small hospital hoping to obtain Magnet status. I am a Master’s student soon to graduate. I work in the critical care department and I am a member of the research comittee. I found your site because I was looking for more info on Relationship Based Model. This is the Model we are moving toward in our hospital. It was great to read your blog. It sounds like you are doing great things in your salon. Best of Luck. Carolyn
Hi Carolyn. How did the meeting go? A lot of Magnet hospitals are also using Relationship Based Care, it just makes so much sense. It looks as if this is an ‘idea whose time has come’. The first book we published by that title has just been ‘flying off the shelves’. And from the comments we were getting, we decided to publish the Field Guide, which is a hugh book chuck full of practical applications and real-life experiences.
What are you getting your Master’s in? Let me know how you are doing and how Relationship Based Care is thought about at your place. Good luck.
Marie, Good to see you yesterday at the forum! I wrote up my notes from the STT panel but don’t know how to get them to you. Please advise. Thanks.
Thanks for the update this morning on the April 29 arrangements for the Rochester Salon. I was unable to find an email for you in the SoN directory, so I sought out your website instead.
As a new Clinical Educator for a small community hospital-I am looking for ways to offer safe forums to the new graduates to assist in OUR journey through our learning curve.The idea of a salon appeals-a lot! however-I am feelng some resistance.By the way-I thank you for taking the time this past nurses week to speak at UH Case Medical Center in Cleveland-I am currently at their Geauga regional Hosp and was sad that I couldn’t hear you speak.
Dear Marie Manthey,
I’m so awed by the opportunity to be able to communicate with you! I came upon this website after receiving a save the date postcard for the Relationship Based Care Symposium coming in July. The CHCM website was on the card, so I logged on to check out the upcoming conference, and saw the link to your Nursing Salon. What a great idea! The nurses in your area are very fortunate. I was wondering if you had considered opening access to some of your sessions to those of us further away by way of the computer? I would really love to be part of it.
Debbie….Anyone can start a Salon….including you. I really think this is a way to deeply improve the lived experiences of nurses and it help us to process in a healthy way the incredible experience we have as nurses. We have had another query about having an on-line salon, but I don’t have a clue how to set one up or what it would take to run one. I am not at all opposed to the idea and several of us at CHCM have talked about it. This blog is our only attempt to spread the word but I would like to be able to really ‘go live’ for those interested. At the same time…..face to face interaction is incredibly important….and I would hope online would stimulate more people to sponsor a Salon. There is something beautiful that happens when students and new nurses enter into healthy conversations with experienced staff nurses and nurses in advanced practice/leader roles….both ways. It is good for the experienced nurses as well as the newbies.
Debbie, let’s stay in touch. You can get into my personal email by clicking on my picture on our website. Maybe I can help you get one started or you can help me figure out how to get one going on-online.
Dear Marie,
I have been searching the web about Primary Nursing because our department(Behavioral Health) is going from Team Nursing to Primary Nsg.My concern is this, they still have the primary nurse doing the unit charge nurse both at the same time.The policy states that the patient load will be divided in half between two primary nurses but the other primary nurse will also function as unit charge nurse but she will be given an LPN to do medications.For me, this policy looks looks like contradictory to the model of Primary Nursing since how can a nurse focus on the patients while doing unit charging which entails so much responsibility for the entire unit.Also our unit has a headnurse.I wonder where she fits into this picture.I would highly appreciate your input on this subject since you are the creator of this Primary Nursing model.Thank you so much!
Dear April.
The way we like to implement Primary Nursing involves a unit planning committee that works through decisions such as those you wrote about. I hear you saying ‘they…..’ so it sounds like decisions are being made by a group outside the unit….or one not communicating thoroughly with the staff. A lot of roles change with Priamry Nursing, including the duties of the charge nurse. As Primary Nurses assume more responsibility for directly communicating with other members of the Health Care Team….the charge nurses role often changes in ways that allow her to manage care as a Primary Nurse. There are many, many different ways to implement the principles of Primary Nursing that are 100% correct although different from one unit to another and one hospital to another. The key issue is that a Primary Nurse has overall responsibility for nursing care decision-making and communicating those decisions to those who take care of her patient when she is not there. How a unit decides to make that work should be a unit-based decision….using a consensus based process.
Correct information about Primary Nursing can be found in my book, The Practice of Primary Nursing. It can also be found in Relationship Based Care…..a publication of Creative Healthcare Management. These can both be found on the website, chcm.com. Creative Nursing Journal is a quarterly journal I help produce and I have a recent article that summarizes the important elements to be implemented and myths to be avoided.
Marie Hello from Madrid (Spain), I am happy to have found a way to get in touch with you.I do not know if I can write in Spanish, I would be much easier. Need to ask questions about Primary Nursing model that we implement and that seems very interesting.
Muchas Gracias
Last night the first Fargo/Moorhead area Salon met at my house. We had 10 nurses and 1 chaplain. People shared openly and at times very emotionally. I thought it went very well and many asked, “When is the next one?” I took that as a good sign!
Congratulations, Patrick. I hope you will continue on a monthly basis….keep letting us know how it is going. Sometime we’ll figure out how to keep track of the spread of this idea. Any takers?