Mr John Wright1,2,3, Mrs Julie Brown1
1Tennant Creek Hospital, Tennant Creek , Australia, 2Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, 3CRANAplus, Cairns, Australia
In remote and isolated practice, it sometimes appears that whoever is “the last one standing” gets pushed to be the manager of the facility. This may occur even when the clinician does not want the role, or feels unprepared for it. Managers then face criticism from their team members and from their own managers about their inevitable mistakes. They also have problems taking leave due to lack of someone to take over while they are away. To combat this, and to improve the quality and sustainability of our leaders and managers, our remote facility implemented a program of supporting, upskilling and inspiring confidence in this group. This presentation is about how and why we did this, and may provide useful information for other remote and isolated health care facilities who struggle with the same issues.
Our program has two threads:
The Leadership Support & Development Forum is where leaders and potential or aspiring leaders get to share ideas, hear a presentation (face-to-face, video, podcast, webinar), and try out new leadership concepts in a safe environment.
The Education For Managers (EFM) program is where a senior manager shares ideas and information about a topic that the facility’s managers have identified as a gap.
The desired outcome measures of increased staff retention and satisfaction, improved manager retention, and more timely decision-making have been swamped by the reality of the pandemic. However, anecdotal reports from participants suggest that they feel better prepared for their roles, more valued in that the organisation is willing to invest in them, and team spirit among the leadership team has improved.
Biography:
John Wright is a remote area nurse and emergency nurse with over 20 years of experience in remote and isolated practice. His professional interests include education, leadership, governance and regulation, and in his spare time he has volunteer roles in all of these areas
Julie Brown is a highly experienced nurse leader with a diverse background in rural and remote nursing and management, academia, safety & quality, infection control, and industrial roles. She has a particular interest in growing and developing managers and leaders in remote and isolated practice.