Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement, Ballad Health team up to highlight the story of nurses
ETSU will host a screening of several of these first-person video stories
on campus on July 31 to publicly launch this initiative.
The story of nursing is a special one. As a demanding profession, requiring empathy,
skill and enormous dedication to the needs of others, it has been under enormous strain
during the past four years.
The Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement and Ballad Health are partnering with
East Tennessee State University and StoryCollab to create the Nurse Narratives Initiative to tell the stories of nursing, from nurses, and explain why nursing remains one of
the most trusted professions.
In the face of unprecedented and historic labor shortages, the pressure on nursing
has never been greater throughout America. The Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement
at East Tennessee State University and Ballad Health are hopeful that these stories,
from nurses themselves, will motivate an entirely new generation of nurses, and help
our current nurses by giving them a platform to acknowledge the burnout and stress
they’ve experienced as America confronts the shortages. Our area is leading this effort
in the hope that other regions also will benefit from this work.
The Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement at ETSU, created by the Tennessee Legislature
and initiated through a $10 million commitment from Ballad Health, is searching for solutions and ways to support nurses across
the region and throughout Tennessee. Led by StoryCollab, part of the ETSU Research Corporation, this initiative will include more than 300 nurses and nurse educators who will participate
in story sessions and workshops.
ETSU will host a free screening of several of the first-person video stories, which
touch on resilience and strength in the face of personal and professional challenges
from local nurses, on campus at 6 p.m. tomorrow in the D.P. Culp Student Center to
publicly launch this initiative.
“At ETSU, we are committed to upholding and strengthening our reputation as a premier
health sciences institution not just in our region, but nationwide,” said Dr. Kimberly
D. McCorkle, ETSU’s provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs. “This
initiative is reflective of that commitment and speaks to the high-quality work being
done at the Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement, which is dedicated to finding
new, innovative ways to bolster the nursing pipeline in our region and state.”
The Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement was created in October 2021 as a statewide
resource dedicated to bringing academic nursing, clinical nursing and school systems
together to expand opportunities for aspiring nurse candidates and augment the supply
of nurses and nursing support in Tennessee.
The center is developing mechanisms for collecting and disseminating data related
to the nursing profession in Tennessee. In partnership with communities throughout
Tennessee, it will develop and propose a strategic statewide plan to address nursing
workforce needs.
This wide-ranging project also will involve nurse educators from regional colleges
and universities, including Emory & Henry College, King University, Milligan University,
Mountain Empire Community College, Northeast State Community College and Walters State
Community College.
The initiative also includes an educational component that will provide nurses and
nursing students at Ballad Health, ETSU and other regional nursing programs with the
tools that emphasize the importance of empathy and communication along with critical
clinical skills to lead to a successful nursing career.
Curriculum will be developed and integrated into existing courses at the graduate
and undergraduate levels at the ETSU College of Nursing. It will feature interactive learning techniques, student-guided learning, peer-to-peer
learning, personal reflection and other components.
“This is a unique initiative that our students, faculty and staff in the College of
Nursing will certainly benefit from,” said Dr. Debbie Byrd, interim dean of the ETSU
College of Nursing and dean of ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. “Empathy is such
a critical skill for health care providers, and integrating this work into our curriculum
will help prepare our students to be successful, team- and patient-oriented health
care providers upon graduation.”
The initiative will culminate in the creation of more than 120 first-person digital
stories from nurses, nursing faculty, students and patients at ETSU’s nurse-led clinics.
Some of the stories will be screened at ETSU’s Martha Street Culp Auditorium, located
in the D.P. Culp Student Center, tomorrow. A film crew also will be part of this process,
leading to the creation of a short documentary film titled the “Transformative Power
of Empathy in Nursing.”
“The Nurse Narratives Initiative is a pioneering way to use storytelling by nurses
themselves to help enhance one of America’s most important professions,” said Ballad
Health chairman and CEO Alan Levine. “Listening to what our nurses have to say, ways
they cope with the stress they have been under for the past several years, and understanding
what motivates them is a rich resource for educating and inspiring future nurses.
We hope our work will be used anywhere in America where it can help the profession.
“In the face of historic challenges to the profession, we’ve implemented many strategies
to support the critical work our nurses do. We have learned that listening to our
nurses has helped us reduce our turnover to historic lows and it’s helping us rebuild
from the shortages we’ve experienced, which all our patients have felt. This is an
ongoing journey, and we hope our work with this initiative will be helpful.”
Registration for tomorrow’s screening is open at https://bit.ly/4f1VUSP. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., with the event starting at 6 p.m. Media are invited to
attend and can RSVP to robertsjm3@etsu.edu.
To learn more about the Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement, visit https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Archives/Senate/113GA/committees/Health-Welfare/2023/Center%20Nursing%20Advancement%20AHCNA%20and%20TCNA%20annual%20report.%20July%2011,%202023.pdf and https://www.etsu.edu/nursing/ahgrownurses/.
East Tennessee State University was founded in 1911 with a singular mission: to improve the quality of life for people in the region and beyond. Through its world-class health sciences programs and interprofessional approach to health care education, ETSU is a highly respected leader in rural health research and practices. The university also boasts nationally ranked programs in the arts, technology, computing, and media studies. ETSU serves approximately 14,000 students each year and is ranked among the top 10 percent of colleges in the nation for students graduating with the least amount of debt.
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