In addition to AI and virtual nursing, ambient listening is at the forefront of healthcare innovation.
Ambient listening technology in its simplest form records and transcribes conversations between a patient and a clinician during appointments. More complex algorithms that incorporate AI are able to pinpoint key phrases or terminology that can be added to the clinical note.
While this technology benefits physicians, it can also be helpful for nurses, especially those working at the bedside. According to Wendi Goodson-Celerin, executive vice president and chief nurse executive at the Florida Health Sciences Center (FHSC), ambient listening technology gives nurses time back to spend with their patients and allows patients to be more engaged in their care.
Here are three tips for a successful ambient listening strategy.
CNOs should bring in new resources using feedback from frontline nurses, says this CNE.
Bedside nurses are the backbone of the healthcare industry, and it's the CNO's job to advocate for their needs and uplift their voices.
This means giving nurse leaders on the frontline the resources they need to be efficient and effective.
At HCA Healthcare, there is a position on the nursing units called the clinical nurse coordinator (CNC), which is similar to a charge nurse. According to Sammie Mosier, senior vice president and chief nurse executive at HCA, the CNCs are critical leaders since they are the ones closest to the bedside leading their teams.
"HCA is a very large company," Mosier said, "so to continue to gather the voice of our leaders, we leverage our structure to do that."
The health system has pulled together leaders from each of its divisions to serve on shared governance councils, one of which is the CNC Council, Mosier explained. During one of those council sessions, the CNCs shared that what they needed was a way to get more information at the bedside in real time to aid in decision making.
Enter the CNC resource tool.
Logistics
After the CNCs made this request, Mosier said the health system's ITG partners, an internal team at HCA, and the nursing infrastructure team were pulled in to start brainstorming what a potential piece of technology could look like. The tool's metrics needed to be operationally focused on the unit level, but also provide a way for the CNCs to judge the healthiness of their units and individual nurses.
"The goal in mind was for our charge nurses to proactively use the tool and then based on the results, they could go assist a nurse if they were falling behind, or to ensure that everyone had lunch," Mosier said. "That's very important to our teams for wellbeing."
As implemented, the tool allows CNCs to pull up an app on their phones and look at their unit's performance. They can see how many patients are coming in, how many patients are being discharged, the team's schedule, and the flags that signify if a nurse needs help or if there are any missing tasks or breaks.
More metrics include medications that have been completed, orders that need to be completed by the nurse under a physician's guidance, and the frequency of vital sign checks. The tool will also flag if patients are having challenges with vital signs.
"We have scaled across the enterprise in med surge [and] we're working on our behavior health population," Mosier said. "Whatever those clinical components are, our teams are working to identify the highest importance so that they can operationalize that."
Impact on the future
According to Mosier, the CNC resource tool has helped the most when it comes to new graduate nurses. New nurses have to get used to how things work in the health system, such as how to prioritize their tasks and find their schedules, and the new tool has helped CNCs proactively assist those nurses.
"That has really helped us with engagement and retention," Mosier said.
Clinical support nurses at HCA are also using the tool to round on new graduate nurses to make sure everything is going well.
"They leverage the tool because they see the value and it helps them determine where they should prioritize their day," Mosier said. "When we're able to use that real time data to inform decision making, it really does help with efficiencies and with ensuring that we’re prioritizing things in the right way."
In the future, Mosier explained that they plan to keep expanding where the tool is used, starting with behavioral health and women's health. Patient care techs also have expressed interest in using the tool.
"[We've been] looking at that care team and expanding it beyond just the nurses' workload," Mosier said, "because that's where the magic happens, in leveraging the full team to care for the patient."
For CNOs who want to try implementing a similar strategy, Mosier recommends prioritizing what the nurses say they need and allowing them the space to brainstorm what works best for them at the front line.
"We've started small, but we've got a great tool now, but being able to prioritize what [the nurses] are after, that's meaningful and that's value add," Mosier said. "I never want to bring a product forward that doesn't include their insight and their voice."
Ambient listening saves nurses time and allows them to practice at the top of their license, says this CNE.
On this episode of HL Shorts, we hear from Wendi Goodson-Celerin, executive vice president and chief nurse executive at the Florida Health Sciences Center (FHSC), about how nurses and patients both benefit from ambient listening. Tune in to hear her insights.
Ambient listening is what nursing needs to become more efficient, says this CNE.
HealthLeaders spoke to Wendi Goodson-Celerin, EVP and CNE at the Florida Health Sciences Center, about Tampa General Hospital's new ambient listening solution and how it is changing bedside nursing workflows. Tune in to hear her insights.
CNOs must help reestablish trust between nurses and leadership to boost communication and engagement, says this CNO.
Nurse engagement is an essential part of building a sustainable workforce in healthcare.
If CNOs want to continue to attract and retain nurses in the profession, they need to get back in touch with the workforce and address the underlying causes of what makes nurses feel disengaged.
Rebuilding the relationship between nurses and nurse leadership is a critical piece of that puzzle. According to Jeff Doucette, CNO at Press Ganey, it begins with a strong, continuous listening strategy where CNOs are hearing the nurses' voices and acting upon their feedback.
Here are 5 steps that CNOs can take to rebuild trust between nurses, their peers, and leadership.
Recruiting nurses begins at the junior high and high school level, says this CNO.
On this episode of HL Shorts, we hear from Jeff Alvarez, vice president of patient care services and CNO at UPMC Washington and UPMC Greene, about how CNOs can recruit new generations of nurses while retaining seasoned generations of nurses. Tune in to hear his insights.
Ambient listening technology gives nurses time back to spend with their patients, says this CNE.
In addition to AI and virtual nursing, ambient listening is at the forefront of healthcare innovation.
Ambient listening technology in its simplest form records and transcribes conversations between a patient and a clinician during appointments. More complex algorithms that incorporate AI are able to pinpoint key phrases or terminology that can be added to the clinical note.
While this technology benefits physicians, it can also be helpful for nurses, especially those working at the bedside. According to Wendi Goodson-Celerin, executive vice president and chief nurse executive at the Florida Health Sciences Center (FHSC), ambient listening technology gives nurses time back to spend with their patients and allows patients to be more engaged in their care.
"In most organizations, nurses spend a great deal of time charting," Goodson-Celerin said. "Whether they’re doing it in bulk, charting halfway through their shift, [or] at the end of their shift, it's a great deal of time…that they could be hands-on working at the top of their license."
Tampa General's approach
Tampa General Hospital, one of the organizations in FHSC’s portfolio, partnered with Epic and Microsoft to implement this innovative approach, Goodson-Celerin explained. The nurses can use the tool during their assessments, and the tool can pick out the key elements of the conversation that are important and compile them into the patient's chart.
"The nurse at the end finishes [their] assessment and…goes to the chart and validates it, hits enter, and it becomes part of the chart," Goodson-Celerin said.
According to Goodson-Celerin, the physicians at Tampa General are already using ambient listening technology and it's exciting to have a solution that helps bedside nurses in an intense, fast-paced healthcare setting.
"When we're looking to see how we can be more efficient and save time, the impact [the technology] has on patient experience and nurse satisfaction, it was a win-win for us," Goodson-Celerin said. "Why wouldn't we go with this?"
Overcoming obstacles
Epic and Microsoft are tweaking the tool along the way as more lessons are learned from outcomes and as the tool is scaled, Goodson-Celerin explained. The nurses are also receiving ample training and support as they adjust to using the ambient listening tool. The main difference in workflow is that now, nurses have to narrate each step of their assessment out loud.
"That's not easy sometimes for nurses to do that," Goodson-Celerin said. "They want to make sure that they're absolutely right about everything."
Patients also may stop the nurse mid-assessment to ask questions about what they are dictating and nurses will have to explain what they mean. Even though it might feel awkward at first, explaining medical terminology further educates the patient and builds a stronger bond with the nurse.
"It's a little uncomfortable in the beginning, but in time and with repetition, they become more comfortable with it," Goodson-Celerin said.
For leadership, it's important to support the nurses and to hear and evaluate their feedback, and pass it along to the developers so the tool can be tweaked, Goodson-Celerin explained. CNOs must also be ready to address the uncertainties and anxieties surrounding the technology by building confidence and emphasizing the importance of the technology for the future of nursing.
"We have various generations of nurses at the bedside," Goodson-Celerin said. "Some are very good with technology and some maybe need a little bit more support around that, but overall, they all know the medical records, so this was a new piece for them."
For CNOs wanting to implement ambient listening in their hospitals or health systems, Goodson-Celerin recommends having the nurses begin narrating their assessments out loud with patients two or three months before it's officially implemented, to build their comfort level and confidence in using ambient listening while engaging with patients.
"Be bold and do it, it is the future," Goodson-Celerin said. "It is what we need in our nursing profession to help us be more efficient."
CNOs must lead with honesty and transparency, says this new CNO.
Jeff Alvarez knew he wanted to be a nurse from the time he was a teenager.
After an accident and extended hospitalization, Jeff knew he wanted to be the one to help people while they were experiencing some of the lowest points in their lives. He earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree in nursing leadership and education from Carlow University in Pittsburgh.
Jeff has been a nurse for 25 years and joined UPMC in 2005 as a unit director at UPMC Presbyterian. He has spent the last 19 years in a variety of nursing leadership roles including unit director of the intensive care unit at UPMC East, director of nursing at UPMC McKeesport, and chief nursing officer and vice president of patient care services at UPMC East and UPMC McKeesport. Jeff now serves as the vice president of patient care services and CNO at UPMC Washington and UPMC Greene.
Jeff is a proven leader with an extensive history of improved quality outcomes, increased patient experience results, fiscal responsibility, and a commitment to developing and supporting his teams. He is committed to using evidenced-based processes to drive progress forward.
On our latest installment of The Exec, HealthLeaders speaks with Alvarez about his journey into nursing, and his thoughts on trends in the nursing industry. Tune in to hear his insights.
Employee engagement is key to delivering on patient experience promises and to high performance as an organization, says this CNO.
Nurse engagement is a critical part of building a sustainable workforce in healthcare.
The Press Ganey Nurse Experience 2025 report, which relies on feedback from more than 500,000 RNs, APPs, and other clinical staff across the country, points towards declining nurse engagement and a gap between nurses and leadership.
If CNOs want to continue to attract and retain nurses in the profession, they need to get back in touch with the workforce and address the underlying causes of what makes nurses feel disengaged.
Why engagement matters
The report shows a direct correlation between a culture of safety and employee engagement, according to Jeff Doucette, CNO at Press Ganey.
"When I feel like I can deliver safe, effective, error-free care, my engagement in the organization is going to be significantly higher," Doucette said.
A disengaged workforce can put patients in danger. Low engagement can yield poor performance in nurse sensitive outcomes, such as falls with injury, CAUTIs, CLABSIs, and pressure injuries, Doucette explained.
"When nurses are disengaged or have lower engagement at work, we see higher rates of adverse events, decreases in patient satisfactions, and then we see degradation in teamwork, which is really important from a safety perspective," Doucette said.
Doucette also emphasized that employee engagement is also key to delivering on patient experience promises and to high performance as an organization.
"The top performing organizations in our database right now all have very high levels of employee engagement in common and have taken an employee first approach," Doucette said.
Reengaging through resilience
According to Doucette, one way to reengage the workforce is through using the resilience model that breaks down the actionable parts of what drives resilience in organizations, specifically among nurses. Those two components are activation and decompression.
"We think about activation as our 'why,'" Doucette said. "There's both an intrinsic component of activation, which is why I became a nurse, why I work in healthcare, [and] then the extrinsic component of activation is the connection to the mission, vision, and values of the organization."
The decompression part of the equation is how nurses are able to get away from their work and recharge. Doucette emphasized that a key driver of burnout among nurses and nurse leaders is the inability to disconnect from work and recuperate.
"Those two things together are really what drive higher levels of engagement," Doucette said, "and it all begins with that building block of resilience."
Reestablishing trust
Rebuilding the relationship between nurses and nurse leadership is critical to raising engagement as well. According to Doucette, it begins with a strong, continuous listening strategy where CNOs are hearing the nurses' voices and acting upon their feedback.
"All of that is underpinned with really strong communication and a high presence from leadership," Doucette said.
CNOs must make sure that nurse leaders are rounding on a regular basis, and that staff know who their leaders are and how to access them. They should also ensure that leaders at the frontline and at middle levels are acting as ambassadors for the CNO, that they're representing the voice of the CNO, and making sure that people understand that their voice is heard.
"Sadly though, in our data set now, only 55% of clinical nurses tell us that they feel like they have a voice in decision making," Doucette said. "When staff understand that the senior-most leaders have their back and are responding to their needs and concerns, that's where we see high levels of trust."
Additionally, CNOs must help reestablish trust between nurses and clinical teams to boost communication and engagement. To Doucette, the key is practicing teamwork, communication, and healthy conflict.
"In healthcare, we don't ever have time to practice," Doucette said. "We may have an hour or two of simulation practice a year, or mandatory competencies, but we're not practicing the skills that we need from a teamwork perspective."
CNOs need to set clear expectations for professional behavior and hold people accountable to them, while creating opportunities for peer mentorship and shared governance.
"It's the everyday teamwork and communication where the magic happens in terms of delivering on expectations around engagement for patients, for employees, and quality and safety," Doucette said.
This is part two of a two-part story. Click here to read part one.
From easing discharge and enhancing safety to scaling Hospital at Home and solving workforce gaps, HealthLeaders Virtual Nursing Mastermind participants are expanding the horizons of virtual nursing.
Today’s virtual nursing strategy, as defined by participants in the 2025 HealthLeaders Virtual Nursing Mastermind program, sponsored by Microsoft, is to expand platforms to create multiple points of value. Why? Well virtual nursing has quickly grown from a tightly scoped experiment into an enterprise-wide movement.
This time around in the program, the participants have several new goals, and a few new frustrations. The name of the game now is expansion – whether that be into other areas in the health system, or sending the technology home with patients in hospital at home programs.
The HealthLeaders Mastermind series is an exclusive series of calls and events with healthcare executives. This Virtual Nursing Mastermind series features ideas, solutions, and insights on excelling your virtual nursing program.
To inquire about participating in an upcoming Mastermind series or attending a HealthLeaders Exchange event, email us at exchange@healthleadersmedia.com.
