A Letter From the Chief Nurse
Dear Colleagues,
The only certainty is that the world is changing. Health care reform is meant to ensure access to quality health care for all the citizens in our great country. The message from society is, however, that this care must also be affordable.
Partners HealthCare and Brigham and Women’s/Faulkner (BW/F) Hospitals are committed to ensuring that we remain strong and viable in order to serve our community and maintain our mission to provide the highest quality patient care.
To that end, BW/F has engaged in two major initiatives. The first is to identify opportunities to enhance revenue and reduce cost. We are working with a health care performance improvement and consulting firm, Wellspring + Stockamp, to help us do this. The second initiative is participation in the Partners’ Strategic Planning effort. This effort will redesign the care we provide to select patient populations across the continuum to ensure that care is evidence-based, affordable and of the highest quality.
It is our belief that if we continue to provide the quality care that epitomizes BWH at affordable rates, then we will be the provider of choice for patients, families and insurers and that we will continue to thrive in the years ahead. To succeed, this effort will require that each of us roll up our sleeves and identify ways to remove unnecessary cost from the system. I invite each of you to share your ideas with your directors about how to reduce unnecessary cost at the local level. With each of you participating in developing strategies for your area, I feel certain we can realize savings. I am confident in our collective creativity and talent and look forward to hearing your ideas.
As we enter into this year’s nurse recognition festivities, I celebrate each of you as members of the BWH nursing community and am proud of the excellent nursing care and caring practices that I witness daily and hear about in conversations with you, our patients and our interdisciplinary colleagues. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve as your chief nurse.
Our Essence of Nursing recipient Karen Legere, BSN, RN, OCN, and honorees Mary Cote, MS, RN, Cardiac Surgery, Diane Miller, MPA/H, BSN, RN, Thoracic ICU, William Poirier, MSN, RN, Neuroscience ICU, and Karen Wallace, BSN, RN, Bone Marrow Transplant, further exemplify this excellent nursing practice.
In closing, I would ask that during our celebrations, we pause and keep our brothers and sisters in Japan in our thoughts. The devastation and suffering caused by this disaster has touched many in our BW/F community and each of us as members of humanity. In whatever way we each can, let’s all commit to the healing of these amazing people and their magnificent country.
Sincerely,
Jackie Somerville, PhD, RN
Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nurse