Perspectives
Will Nurses Move to the Healthcare C-Suite?
Nurses add value to the healthcare C-Suite—specifically as chief nursing officers (CNOs) and chief nursing informatics officers (CINOs). But can nurses bridge gaps in culture and tradition to become CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and CQOs within the C-Suite?
The answer is yes. Healthcare organizations (HCOs), however, must overcome barriers to nurses’ development and success, according to Newsworks (http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/91003-are-more-nurses-checking-into-the-c-suite). Specifically, they must respond to the potholes and pitfalls facing the overwhelmingly female nurse population. Among the available strategies are the following:
Respond to business skill gaps. While nurses function with finely tuned clinical skills, they sometimes lack sufficient business and financial knowledge, skill and experience. HCOs can support nurses who aspire to executive and board management with career planning, education, training, mentoring and coaching.
Future healthcare C-Suite executives need guidance in conflict resolution, operational analysis, workforce development and quality improvement. Especially vital, however, is financial expertise. Small wonder that a growing number of hospitals and health systems now seek talent from industries like venture capital, finance, banking, technology, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, according to a 2014 Black Book Rankings poll (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/12/prweb11421983.htm).
Resist gender stereotyping. Promote fairness and equity in the workplace by offering programs that counter sexist stereotypes. By presenting alternatives to restrictive, gender-based attitudes, beliefs and values, HCOs can help employees, managers and executives expand their notion of what constitutes “women’s work.” Doing so will open up opportunities for nurses via fresh approaches to recruitment, performance evaluation, education, training and succession planning.
The stakes are high. The consequences of sexist and gender-based stereotypes extend beyond the careers of budding executives to patients. People who encounter threatening, negative stereotypes related to weight, age, race, gender, or social class are more likely to experience hypertension, depression and negative body image, according to a University of Southern California study (https://news.usc.edu/87509/warning-stereotypes-may-be-harmful-to-patients-health).
Build career-focused communities of women. Offer nurse employees, managers and executives opportunities to share workplace experiences and career plans. Nurses will appreciate the opportunity to share stories of covert workplace sexism (http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/stories-of-everyday-sexism-as-told-by-women-in-medicine#.roK4vKAXx), as well as ideas on how to grapple with office politics and achieve work-life balance.
Inspiration may come through entities like the Women in Healthcare Leadership Project of the National Council on Healthcare Leadership (http://www.nchl.org/static.asp?path=2851,6147), which has already documented “career inflection points” of women who became healthcare CEOs.
Billed as ‘the voice of nursing leadership,” the 9, 000-member American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) (http://www.aone.org) also leads the way through nurse leader education, advocacy, research and its Center for Care Innovation and Transformation (CCIT).
Be on the lookout for fresh opportunities. Nurses, in particular, can ride the wave of dominant healthcare trends. Look for ways to involve nurses in new HCO initiatives across the expanding continuum of care, as well as growth areas like eldercare, behavioral health and home healthcare, advises Minority Nurse (http://minoritynurse.com/the-new-health-care-workplace). Doing so may require HCOs to provide nurses with tuition reimbursement for graduate degrees in nursing and healthcare.
The future is as broad as the imagination. Nurses who receive guidance and support from HCOs may decide that their career future lies elsewhere—in business ownership, consulting, government, media, research or education. No matter how nurses’ careers evolve, nurses are poised to transform healthcare through their unique leadership style, skill set and knowledge of care delivery.