AdventHealth Central Florida Division President and CEO Randy Haffner recently spoke with Orlando Sentinel health reporter Caroline Catherman about the organization’s priorities for 2022. Among the highlights:
Addressing the nursing shortage:
“The importance of nursing cannot be minimized in any way. It is something that is at the very heartbeat of a hospital,” Haffner told the Sentinel. Among initiatives under way to address the situation:
- Incentives such as tuition reimbursement; in-house training programs that allow nurses to be promoted to higher positions; and psychologists and chaplains entirely devoted to supporting caregivers.
- AdventHealth University, located on the campus of AdventHealth Orlando, is planning to triple the size of its annual graduating class.
- A pilot program for virtual nursing has just launched, where in-room TVs allow nurses to video chat with patients and perform services that can be done remotely, such as completing paperwork and answering patients’ questions.
Mental health:
A perpetual area of need in Central Florida is lack of access to mental health services.
“I can guarantee you that one of the issues that is going to come out of that is access and support of behavioral health,” Haffner told the Sentinel. “COVID has certainly exasperated and shined a bright light on the issue.”
Health equity:
Haffner said the hospital system will also focus on improving health equity in the coming years, with c-suite leaders specifically dedicated to the issue.
AdventHealth is also working to address health inequity with its new electronic medical record platform, Epic, which will incorporate artificial intelligence to aid patient care, Haffner said.
Haffner said Epic uses prompts to guide doctors in following the company’s protocols and best practice guidelines. The system’s advice will change based on ongoing analyses of how patient diseases and outcomes vary by factors such as zip codes and ethnicities.
Read the full article at OrlandoSentinel.com.