Sentara CNO describes how to address nurse burnout

In a HealthLeaders Media podcast released last week, Genemarie McGee, RN, the corporate vice president and chief nursing officer (CNO) of Sentara Healthcare, described steps that her health care system is taking to address nurse burnout. McGee, an AONL member, said that Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara has a strong nursing shared governance structure to lift the voices of bedside nurses. The health care system also attempts to staff as well as it can, tries to offer flexible scheduling, provides mental health resources to nurses and implements an annual staff engagement survey. Its leaders participate in rounding and check in on staff, among other strategies. She noted that communication “helps quite a bit around resiliency and engagement, which are the opposite of what we would call burnout.” (HealthLeaders Media article, 6/8/22)