CVMC’s Professional Nursing Model was created by Eddie Beard, CNO in 1990 to facilitate excellence in patient outcomes while ensuring consistency within nursing practice throughout CVMC’s practice settings. Such models help nurses assess, plan, and implement patient care by providing a framework within which to work. Models are constructed of theories and concepts and help to establish authority, accountability, and responsibility for Nursing’s provision of patient care.

Professional Nursing Models should be living and breathing entities that evolve based on current literature and advances in nursing professional practice. In 2007 the nursing leadership undertook a major revamping of the nursing model. The restructured model reflects three major categories: the science of nursing, the art of nursing, and the patient perspective.

In 2005, we began to realize that issues, such as patients’ wait times and total lengths of stay in the Emergency Department (ED), were more than could be solved by the ED in isolation since multiple departments and disciplines directly impacted these complex matters.  Inasmuch as this endeavor would prove to be so far-reaching and multifaceted, we elected to contract with a division of “The Advisory Board,” a health care related consulting firm and think-tank from Washington DC, called H*Works.  H*Works exists to help various hospital based service lines operate at maximum potential.  Our collective goal was to streamline operations and improve patient services and satisfaction through greater efficiency.

CVMC continues to be a destination OR for our community. But as we have grown both in technology and utilization, we realized that maximizing use of the existing structure, while adopting best practice would allow the department to progress from “good to great.” In the summer of 2007, both the Surgical Services and Anesthesia departments engaged with H*Works to improve processes at our organization. A team was formed to implement best practices that allow our hospital to enhance surgical services efficiency, focusing primarily on scheduling, preoperative process, and on-time starts. Team members included direct care staff, clinical managers, physicians, support staff and administrative leaders.