CNO Corner

Before I can help lead us to re-designation, I need to truly understand UAMS. That understanding starts with the people driving patient care in every unit, every clinic, every department. From the moment I walk onto a unit or into a staff meeting, I’m met with pride, energy, and a deep commitment to excellence. Each […]

Team, It’s hard to believe, but 2026 is here. There’s a lot on the horizon for this year already – it’s going to be another busy one. I’ll share more details and our Nursing theme for the year at the annual CNO Address event, which is scheduled for March 16. I hope you’ll join in […]

Team, I know everyone says this every year, but, seriously, how is it already December?!?! It seems like yesterday we were welcoming all the summer new grads, and there’s no way it’s been a whole year since our Magnet designation. Believe it or not, 2025 will be over in just 26 days! Last January, I […]

Team, I’m thrilled to share that after more than five years of struggling with staffing shortages and turnover, we are reaching a point where our nursing workforce is much more stable. That doesn’t mean we have “arrived” and can stop focusing on the things we need to do to secure our nursing teams, but it […]

Team, Last month’s newsletter included a link to a short survey with questions about the things that help you feel valued and how we can help you feel more valued. I appreciate everyone who responded. You shared very important insight and perspectives that will help us do better. The responses weren’t surprising – the things […]

Team, Most of you probably remember learning about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at some point in your education. (If it’s been a minute and you need a refresher, just click the link above.) The general concept is that your physiological needs, such as food, shelter and safety (job security) must be satisfied before you can […]

I absolutely love this time of year! I get excited about having all our new nurses on campus. Looking back, I’m so glad my experiences as a new graduate nurse were a far cry from what things look like now. When I graduated from UCA in the early ‘90s, I had to relocate to Fort […]

Team, Last month’s Nurses Week was so much fun! I loved getting to greet so many of you as you came into work and hearing all the inspirational stories during the Professional Nursing Awards and the Awards of Excellence. Listening to how you pitched in to help your colleagues, took extraordinary measures to help patients […]

Team, I’m looking forward to celebrating Nurses Week with you all! Susan Erickson and our entire Nurses Rock Committee have once again done a fabulous job planning a week full of activities. Don’t forget to take advantage of the special 20% discounts for nurses at the Cancer Institute and Hospital gift shops from May 5-9. […]

Team, As your Chief Nursing Officer, I am deeply committed to leading and advocating for you while ensuring you have the necessary support to provide high-quality patient care. I recognize the challenges you face daily and appreciate your dedication to doing what is right for your patients. My commitment to working alongside you and our […]

Team, Thank you to everyone who attended last week’s CNO Town Hall or participated via Zoom. If you’d like to hear my remarks and learn more about Magnet redesignation and our resource nurse program, click here to view the presentation. One of the things we talked about at the meeting was results from the November […]

Colleagues, Last year was a huge one for UAMS Nursing. I’ll have a more detailed recap at the annual CNO Address at 11 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 24, in the Lobby Gallery, but I’d like to share a few highlights. In addition to earning Magnet status (yay!), we made significant improvements in staffing. For example: […]

Colleagues, Well, here we are – the beginning of a new year and the anticipation of a fresh start. I’ve never been one to make new year’s resolutions, but I often set goals and work toward them. In my mind, there’s a difference — a resolution is a firm declaration of something you plan to […]

Chief Nursing Officer Tammy Jones and the Center for Nursing Excellence wish you a very Happy New Year! We are looking forward to continuing our Magnet journey in 2025 and can’t wait to see what we will accomplish together this year. Together, we will make UAMS the best place in Arkansas for both patients and […]

Colleagues, The holiday crunch between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the perfect time to reflect on everything we have to be grateful for and things that bring us joy. I have to admit that I’m not the best at stopping to count my blessings or reflect on the past, but I had time when preparing for […]

Colleagues, My goodness. It’s hard to know where to start! First, we are anticipating a call from the ANCC in just a couple of weeks with hopefully good news about our application for Magnet designation. I can’t believe we may be almost there! Please stay tuned and watch for more information as we approach this […]

Colleagues, Wow. This has been an amazing week. And just as I predicted last month, I am incredibly proud of not only our nursing team but also the entire UAMS Health team supporting us. We are one step closer to Magnet designation. From the dozens of nurses and Team UAMS members who lined the halls […]

Colleagues, It’s hard to believe, but this is the last CNO message before our Magnet site visit on Oct. 2-4. So many thoughts and words are coming to mind, but the one that keeps coming up the most is “proud.” I am so incredibly proud of our nursing team, our nursing leaders, our Magnet champions […]

Colleagues, We’ve got a lot of news to cover this month, so I’ll dive right in. First, I’d like to thank the nurses who attended the first “Talk with Tammy” session a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed getting to sit down and talk with them, and according to the follow-up surveys, they all […]

Colleagues, I’ve received several responses to last month’s message, and the common theme was, “thank you for bringing this to the surface.” I’ve thought more about the importance of a safe and healthy work environment in the past month – and the value of open, honest communication. A couple of recent experiences reminded me about last […]

Colleagues, Three weeks ago, 170 new nurses joined our profession after graduating from the UAMS College of Nursing. BSN graduate Tyler Dawson spoke at the hooding and pinning ceremony about recently being a patient and thanked the paramedics, doctors and nurses who helped care for him. “It was through this experience, here at the end […]

Colleagues, You did it! Our Leapfrog Grade is an A, and now everyone can see what goes into the outstanding care we provide here at UAMS Health. This achievement and recognition make me so proud of all of you and the hard work you have put in over the past several years to improve our […]

Colleagues, I know we say this a lot, but it seems truer now than ever before – time really does fly. I can’t believe all that’s happened in just the past month and how quickly all the festivities of May are approaching. A lot has happened since my last newsletter message – the most important […]

Colleagues, As a follow-up to the Nursing Town Hall session in late January, I’d like to respond to several of the questions during the session and in the post-event survey. Most of the questions are related to compensation, work environment, or career advancement, so I’ll address those rather than some of the more specific questions. […]

Colleagues, I’ve survived my first day as CNO! In case you missed the email with the announcement last Friday, Dr. Krause sent a message announcing that I had been named the Chief Nursing Officer for UAMS Health effective Feb. 1, after serving in this role on an interim basis since October. I’m thrilled to take […]

Colleagues, A nationwide survey conducted in November by Gallup showed that Americans’ confidence in our medical system is not as high as it was 10 years ago. There are a number of likely contributors to this. The COVID pandemic and the resulting staffing shortages, concerns surrounding insurance providers/coverage, and higher prices for medical care related […]

Dear UAMS Nursing Colleagues, Over the past several weeks I’ve rounded on various units and visited with a number of you. I can see the exhaustion on many of your faces. Exhaustion, burnout and compassion fatigue are not issues just here at UAMS – they are affecting nurses across the United States. Being a nurse […]

Dear UAMS Nursing Colleagues, I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced anything like the past three weeks. Since accepting the interim chief nursing officer role, my life has been a whirlwind of questions, ideas, urgent challenges, a LOT of listening, and trying to figure out how to prioritize things that are all important. In […]

Earlier this year UAMS Health was one of only six health organizations across the United States selected by the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare to participate in the center’s inaugural Healing Healthcare Initiative (HHI). The Schwartz Center, a national nonprofit dedicated to putting compassion at the heart of health care, developed this initiative to guide […]

Remember what the first day of school felt like? If you were going back to the same school with friends from the previous year, it likely meant catching up on the gossip of the summer, comparing new school supplies, making plans for play dates and ball games and easing back into familiar routines with your […]

One of the things we hear repeatedly from UAMS Health nurses is that the things that make working at UAMS so different from any other health care facility are the learning opportunities, the clinical ladder and the colleagues who so quickly become like family. UAMS is so big and diverse that everyone can find “their […]

Happy New Year! Others outside an academic medical center are probably confused by this, but, if you know you know. Like every other July, our hospital and clinics are now home to a new class of residents and many new employees. I’m pleased to share that almost 100 of our new employees this month are […]

Two weeks ago our daughter Olivia was one of the 157 students who graduated from the UAMS College of Medicine. I have to say, this was one of the proudest Mom moments of my life. I look forward to seeing how much more she learns and grows during her residency in Emergency Medicine here at […]

Earlier this week Jimmy Kimmel featured a montage of newscasters and meteorologists expressing their dismay that we’ve reached May already. I’m with Todd Yakoubian – I can’t believe it either. Yet, here we are, and the 203rd anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday is one week from today. Which means we will be celebrating Nurses Week at […]

One thing I’ve heard over and over from people who were caught in last week’s tornadoes was how quickly it was over – and how dramatically things changed. We are so fortunate that there were so few injuries and fatalities here in Arkansas. I guess all the elementary school drills and information from our local […]

1,052 – that’s the number of days from when the first patient tested positive for COVID-19 in Arkansas and when I tested positive a few weeks ago. Like many of you, I was ready to sigh a sigh of relief that I had escaped this virus unscathed, but it wasn’t meant to be. It started with […]

Smiles! Oh how I love seeing them again! I hope this means we have turned the corner and can leave the pain of the past month and the struggles of the past three years behind. January 2023 has to go down as one of the most difficult months in UAMS history. We returned from the holiday […]

The beginning of 2023 was not the festive celebration I had anticipated, having just learned of the passing of our colleague, UAMS College of Medicine Dean Susan Smyth. Since joining UAMS in March 2021, she supported our nursing programs and worked to enhance communication and collaboration between clinical programs and the College of Medicine.  I also lost […]

If you’re like me, you’ve got one question on your mind right now — how can it be December already?!?!? This year seems to have flown by faster than others, and I think one of the reasons is that we’re so excited about opportunities to see each other again. It was SO wonderful to see […]

Wow. October was a busy month! But, it was a “good” busy, with our LPN hiring process well underway, recognition of Care Management, Emergency Nurses, MAs, PAs, Respiratory Therapy, Infection Prevention, Physical Therapy, Pharmacy, Healthcare Quality, Health Education and Sterile Processing, our eight “40 under 40” Nurse Leaders, our “Great 100 Nurses in Arkansas,” and […]

One of questions many of you are thinking is probably, “When will everything get better?” I’m thrilled to finally be able to answer, “Hopefully very soon!” First, COVID numbers here at UAMS and across Arkansas continue to improve. The Arkansas Department of Health reported earlier this week that 206 people were hospitalized in our state, […]

Last month marked my three-year anniversary as Chief Nursing Officer. When I stepped into this role, I had been fortunate to work with the amazing UAMS Nursing team for many years, and I was looking forward to working with you on many opportunities, but I had no idea about the challenges ahead. As I have […]

Remember when the COVID pandemic began two and a half years ago and there was no toilet paper on store shelves? As more people started working from home, there were no computers, web cameras, monitors or laptops. Then, supply chain issues created random shortages of everything from cream cheese to cars. With the Russian invasion […]

As we welcome the 70 recent new graduate RNs who are joining our UAMS nursing team this summer, I’ve reflected back on the early days of my nursing career. I went to nursing school because I wanted to care for patients at the bedside. I started my career as a new grad nurse in the […]

I’d like to urge each of you to complete the UAMS Employee Engagement Survey between now and Friday, June 17. The survey is open to all employees hired before Feb. 16, your responses are confidential, and this is your chance to let our leadership team know how we can improve your experience as a UAMS […]

Happy Nurses Week! We officially kicked off this year’s week of recognition of nursing at UAMS yesterday morning with a kick-off and blessing of the hands. It was a special and moving way to begin our week. Tonight, nurses across Arkansas will be honored as bridges and office buildings in downtown Little Rock are lit […]

Happy Spring! I have been a nurse for 28 years and have seen many changes during this time — some positive and others not so much. One of these is the lost art of the narrative. When I was a young nurse, we met our patients, assessed them and gathered their “story.” We then documented […]

Happy Employee Appreciation Day! These words may sound hollow given all that you have gone through in the past year, but I want to assure you that each of you are truly appreciated and valued for your contributions to UAMS. I get it. Times are tough right now, tougher than almost all of us have […]

As I’ve mentioned before, Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. It’s always been special for me because the majority of my at-the-bedside nursing career was as a pediatric cardiac nurse, and Valentine’s Day coincides with heart month and the Go Red for Women campaign. I hope you remembered to wear red today as […]

Happy New Year!  One of the consequences of COVID was the cancellation of beauty pageants across the world. This meant that many of the individuals crowned in 2019 were asked to continue their reign for a second year and had to continue to be “perfect” for another whole year. As you probably know, the American Nurses […]