In response to a dramatic increase in firearm-related injuries both here and around the country, the nursing administration of the Children’s Emergency Department, at the direction of Children’s chief nursing officer and other executive leadership, assembled a steering committee to organize existing efforts and bring about new ideas. This team is made up of emergency department leadership, nurses and physicians, directors of integrative care, physicians in primary care, critical care and rehabilitation medicine, Children’s government relations staff and strategic communications and marketing staff. The group’s focus is to provide education related to protecting kids from firearm injuries. One of their first initiatives was establishing a partnership with Be SMART, a national organization dedicated to education and awareness about firearm safety. Children’s also produced episodes of its Inside Pediatrics and Red Wagon podcasts with details about the new committee and our strategies for promoting firearm safety.
In 2023, Children’s added to its workplace violence prevention efforts that leaders began in 2021. Since then, we have been working diligently to proactively address workplace violence prevention, and it continues to be listed as a strategic objective on our strategic plan and as a performance improvement priority. In 2023, Children’s completed multiple worksite analyses and has made changes and improvements. We will repeat those in high-risk areas on a yearly basis. We also invested approximately $1 million in lighting upgrades and additional lighting to the 5th and 7th Avenue parking decks to implement LED lighting and motion-sensor lighting. These strategies complement the many others we already have in place to keep our employees and patients safe.
The Children’s of Alabama Health Education and Safety Center received several large grants that will help provide crucial education to parents and their children.
Nursing at Children’s of Alabama recently entered into an agreement with the Jefferson State Community College School of Nursing (JSCC-SON) to provide a nursing apprenticeship program for qualified students. A nursing apprenticeship program is competency based, offers on-the-job training, clinical experiences and income for apprentices. Once a nursing student meets all required elements at JSCC-SON, they are employed by Children’s, where they are paired with two journey workers who are experienced registered nurses. The journey workers facilitate the professional growth in knowledge, skills, and interpersonal communication, and validate competencies of the apprentice. The program benefits the school of nursing, the nursing apprentice and the health care organization. Children’s has the opportunity to recruit, train and retain these nurse apprentices. In return for the modeling and molding, Children’s has each apprentice sign a two-year post-graduation agreement to remain employed as a registered nurse on a medical surgical unit at Children’s.
In September, nursing leaders attended a nursing leadership symposium, where they heard from clinical psychologists and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general. The program was focused on strategies for working under stress and tactics for accomplishing goals.