Pathways to Excellence with TidalHealth Atlantic
BERLIN, Md. – In this week’s Health Beat, brought to you by TidalHealth, WMDT spoke with Amy Edwards, TidalHealth Atlantic’s Pathways to Excellence and Education Manager, as well as Kayla Wallace, TidalHealth Atlantic’s Med-Surg Nurse Manager.
Edwards and Wallace spoke with WMDT about the Pathways to Excellence designation, a title bestowed by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (NCC) upon hospitals who can show that they’ve demonstrated and created a positive practice environment through the six Pathways Standards. The Pathway Standards are the following:
- Decision-making
- Leadership
- Well-being
- Quality
- Safety
- Professional development
Part of achieving the Pathways designation comes through a voluntary, confidential survey given to the hospital’s nurses to validate claims made by their organization’s positive work environments. At TidalHealth Atlantic, 85 percent of the nurses participated, with 65 percent participating within the first three days.
“Like our CNO always says, it’s not about just checking those boxes of the framework that the NCC has provided for us,” said Edwards. “It’s about the journey and actually going on that ride to make positive culture change in a place where people love to come to work.”
Further, the thriving work environment is ultimately beneficial to patients as well. Wallace told us that research consistently shows that supported health care professionals provide better care leading to patients experiencing better outcomes.
“This was not done by one person overnight, and it was not something that we took lightly,” Edwards concluded. “This took every single team member that we have here… our organization really just went full force to make sure that we could achieve a designation. And we thank [NCC] from the bottom of our hearts.”
