Blog
Where Have All The Nurses Gone?
I’ve had a very busy summer consulting with hospices all across the US. In talking with administrators about their biggest worries, I heard one alarm sounded everywhere I went: Hospice is in the grip of a critical nursing shortage. Certainly, in some areas the problem is greater than in others, but make no mistake; recruiting the ideal experienced, compassionate, smart, flexible and dedicated hospice nurse (or social worker, for that matter) is more challenging by the day. As a board member of the University of Florida College of Nursing’s Alumni Council, I can tell you that the school cannot afford to admit more than 120 new undergraduates/year. The University of Delaware College of Nursing admits 136. Numbers like these will not begin to meet the burgeoning needs of the Baby Boomer generation as they age.
And it’s not just that new nurses aren’t entering the field at the rate we need them to; we’re losing those we have, nurses who are leaving the...
Excellence: It Starts With Your Staff Part 2
Image Above: Danny Meyer on Hospitality...the root word of Hospice
In my last newsletter I introduced Danny Meyer the famous NYC restauranteur with radical ideas about "enlightened hospitality". His commitment to extraordinary customer service begins first with an excellent staff. How do you hire - for skills, or for people smarts? My philosophy has always led me to look first for personality, a sense of mission, and cultural fit, because the rest can be learned.
Danny dealt with a similar situation in staffing his first restaurant. As he describes the process, “My brain was looking for people with restaurant skills, but my heart was beseeching me to cultivate a restaurant family. The job application form I wrote was idiosyncratic: I typed questions like, “How has your sense of humor been useful to you in your service career?” “What was so wrong about your last job?” “Do you prefer Hellmann’s or Miracle Whip?” If...
Excellence: It Starts With Your Staff Part 1
Image Above: Patti and Danny Meyer NYC 2008
Inspiration and great ideas for hospice management often come from surprising sources. For instance, what could we in hospice possibly learn from a top-flight New York restaurateur like Danny Meyer? As it turns out, plenty - especially if we’re looking for insight on how to find and keep great staff.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by how much similarity there is in our respective fields; after all, “hospice” and “hospitality” both spring from the same Latin root – and we’re both in the business of providing comfort and welcome to strangers. And, as is true in the kinds of high-end dining places Meyers has created – restaurants like Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, The Modern, and even The Shake Shack, - our patients’ experiences hinge on the quality of their interactions with our front-line staff. Truly, staff members are the face and heart of our organizations -...
