Nursing Leadership

Nursing Shared Leadership Council

The Nursing Department of Nicklaus Children's Hospital is competently led by transformational leaders who empower nurses to shape their practice and improve patient care through utilizing their voice within the nursing department via several resources/opportunities within the Nursing Shared Leadership Council (NSLC) Structure.

Nurses across all settings are highly encouraged to become actively involved in membership within the Nursing Shared Leadership Councils enabling them to influence the organizational decision making processes. Staff nurse involvement in the NSLC is pivotal to the success and positive outcomes achieved from these councils. Learn more.

CNO Advocacy

The Chief Nursing Officer advocates for the department of nursing across all levels of the organization. It is through her advocacy with the other members of the Senior leadership team that Nicklaus Children's Hospital has accomplished improving patient outcome, decreasing blood stream infections, increasing patient safety, implementation of patient and family centered care rounds, improved staffing and much more.

The CNO serves as the Patient Safety Officer and is responsible for assuring that the hospital promotes a safety-supportive culture that is consistent with evidence-based practice; identifies and analyzes trends from adverse-events; implements pertinent and preventive patient safety initiatives; provides/supports education related to patient safety; disseminates information, including findings from adverse events or root cause analysis across the organization, and finally, ensures that the organization provides clinical excellence in the safest patient environment.

Some of the mechanisms that the staff are able to communicate with the CNO and allow for the CNO to better advocate for the staff are unit-specific: listening sessions, "Take your CNO to Work Day," and nursing townhalls.

Community & Organizational Leadership

Healthy Connects in Community Schools

This initiative provides preventive and basic school health services in an effort to decrease absenteeism and improve the health outcomes of students. This program provides an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN)/licensed practical nurse (LPN), licensed clinical Social Worker and two health aides to high-risk schools. Nicklaus Children's Hospital currently services 9 schools throughout Miami-Dade County.

Help for Haiti Hydrocephalus Team

Nicklaus Children's Hospital has a volunteer surgical team that visits Haiti to perform life-saving free of charge corrective surgeries. The surgical team consists of two Neurosurgeons, three Registered Nurses, a Nurse Practitioner, two surgical technicians, one attending Anesthesiologist, one or two certified & nurse anesthetists. The surgical team typically treats 15-20 children in two and a half days; each day consisting of 12-13 hours. Since the program began in 2002, more than 200 children have been surgically treated for hydrocephalus.

Nicklaus Children's Hospital Camps

Nicklaus Children's Hospital nurses participate in activities with children and provide ongoing nursing care in the summer camps that benefit children with special needs. Nicklaus Children's Hospital serves diverse populations of children with chronic diseases. All camps are an interdisciplinary collaboration that offers the children with developmentally appropriate games, crafts, fieldtrips, disease education and support groups. Many of Nicklaus Children's Hospital's nurses are involved in the organization and/or coordination of these camps. Some of the camps are:

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Camp UOTS

Camp U.O.T.S. is an annual weeklong, overnight camp for children with cancer and blood disorders who are treated at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

group of children at camp.

Camp Roaring Sun

Camp Roaring Sun is a camp exclusively for children with diabetes who are treated at Nicklaus Children's Hospital.

special needs girl with paints on her hands.

Camp DMC

Camp DMC is a summer program for children with special needs run by Nicklaus Children’s Dan Marino Outpatient Center.

campers enjoying  a day at the beach.

Ventilation Assisted Children’s Center (VACC) Camp

VACC Camp is a week-long sleep-away camp that creates unprecedented recreational and fellowship opportunities for children requiring ventilator assistance and their families.

campers in costume during an activity.

Camp Superstar

Camp Superstar is a three-day sleep away camp for children with craniofacial conditions.

Succession Planning

Succession planning is one aspect of talent management that identifies and develops employees within an organization with potential, in order to fill in key positions as and when they become available or vacant. The decision to nominate individuals as leaders or high potentials is not an easy task. To identify talent, one must work with individuals identify competencies that they will need to successfully fill a selected role. Leaders also need to provide development opportunities to assess if the potential successor is ready for the role.

At Nicklaus, we provide such opportunities through coaching, mentoring and stretch project programs that help leader determine strengths and opportunities of the potential successor in order to close out gaps before filling the selected role.

Nicklaus Children's offers and opportunity for Clinical Nurses to shadow various roles in nursing through it's L.E.N.S. (Leadership Exploration Nurse Shadowing Experience) Program. We also offer the Emergency Leader Program that provides staff with fundamentals or leadership development.

Preceptorship/Mentoring

All new nurses are assigned a preceptor to help them successfully assimilate into our culture and their new role in our organization. A preceptor is assigned to a new nurse for 8 to 16 weeks of orientation, depending on the type of unit that they work in. In order to ensure that the preceptors are effective, they attend a preceptor development course which teaches them the different roles of a preceptor. An effective preceptor has shown to increase the success of the new hires, increase the retention rate and the overall satisfaction of the new nurses. Once the new nurse is off orientation, the preceptor mentors the new hire to continue to help them grow professionally.

The Horizon Nurse Residency Program has a formalized mentoring program embedded to help foster professional development and enhance organizational enculturation among graduate nurses transitioning to the practice setting.