St James’s in the US: presenting the SJH’s achievements at the Philadelphia conference and finally an inspiring real-life encounter with the enthusiastic team with their twin hospital in New York.

by Charlotte Stuart, Assistant Director of Nursing and M4E Lead, St. James’s Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

St James’s Hospital (SJH) is Ireland’s largest acute academic teaching hospital and is based in Dublin’s south inner city. We strive to deliver health treatment, care and diagnosis as well as health promotion and preventative services at local, regional and national levels. Our academic partner is Trinity College Dublin. We are delighted to be one of 15 hospitals in Ireland taking part in the M4E research project. Myself and my colleague Marian Broderick, M4E Manger, were fortunate to be supported by our Director of Nursing, Sharon Slattery and our corporate team to attend the recent in person M4E Learning Collaborative and the ANCC Magnet® Conference held in Philadelphia in October and to then travel to Long Island in New York for a site visit with our now friends in our twin hospital; Long Island Jewish Medical Center (LIJMC).

​M4E Learning Collaborative
I was very honoured to be invited to speak at this learning collaborative about our efforts in SJH to ‘Maximise the Response Rates in the Clinician Wellbeing survey’. I shared how we use several forms of media; in-house magazines, newsletters, podcasts, twitter and printed promotional material to get the word out there. We have been hugely supported by our now many shared governance councils who help to promote, promote, promote! We have tried to use what M4E has already helped to achieve in our hospital to encourage participation but recognise that we must constantly continue to promote the survey. We, like hospitals throughout the world, have seen a huge turnover of staff in recent times which means we need to consistently inform our nurses and doctors about M4E and the importance of having their voice heard.  

Conference Concurrent Session
Linda Vassallo, Senior Director, Patient Care & Magnet Program Director from LIJMC and I were also delighted to be asked to speak at the M4E concurrent session at the ANCC National Magnet Conference ® and our presentation title was “Pursuing Magnet® Excellence Together: An International Partnership”. In our presentation we spoke about the similarities between our hospitals and how we had developed a very strong and collaborative relationship from the start. We in SJH have been so lucky to have been twinned with Linda and the team in LIJMC who have been so giving of their time, information and expertise. Their support has led us to having 8 (and counting) established and strengthening shared governance councils in SJH empowering our frontline staff to have an active role in decision making, building stronger teams and developing our sense of community.  

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Site Visit to LIJ
Marian and I also had the opportunity to travel to New York to visit LIJMC for a 2-day site visit. This was a fabulous opportunity to see Magnet® in action. ​The warm welcome we got from everyone we met was so appreciated and it was fantastic to hear about the many great initiatives underway. The staffs infectious enthusiasm was felt throughout the hospital; on our tour of the hospital’s clinical areas, our meeting of the executive team, educators and the council meetings we attended. We also had the opportunity to meet several Irish nurses working in the hospital who hadn’t lost their Irish accents and made a special effort to come and meet us.

​This trip really cemented our relationship and we look forward to welcoming our US friends to SJH sometime in the new year.

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Finally; the overall experience
We travelled to the US full of excitement to meet as many people as we could, to learn as much as we could and to meeting with the LIJMC team particularly with Linda Vassallo, Jane-Ellen Barr, Nhadelle Hilaire and Margaret Murphy who we meet with regularly on Zoom. However, we could not have anticipated how well we were looked after and included by the nurses attending the conference from LIJMC and the other Northwell Health Hospitals.

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As for the conference itself; the sheer scale of the venue, the 13,000 nurses, the fantastic keynote speaker, winners of awards and conference sessions…the celebration of nursing and all the excellent work that is being done to witness that in person is an experience I will never forget.