Team,
It’s been almost three weeks since this year’s Nursing Town Hall, and I’ve received a lot of positive feedback about the 2026 Nursing Call to Action, “Elevating Excellence – UAMS Nurses Are ‘All In.’”
I hope you saw my e-mail earlier this week with more information about this. If not, I’ll share more about this call to action. To me, elevating excellence is more than a one-time goal; it’s an intentional, daily commitment to raising our standards (which I’m proud to say are already very high). Being “all in” is like being in the zone or totally focused on your work and your patients. This means giving our best, without holding back, during every shift.
If you’re like me and have been watching college basketball lately, it’s easy to see when teams are “all in” – and it’s easy to see what happens when their focus shifts momentarily. A one-sided game can quickly become a close one, and a close game can go wide open with just a couple of trips down the court with 3-point baskets.
In nursing, it’s not so easy to see what “all in” means, as it can change from day to day, depending on your needs, those of your patients, and those of your colleagues. We need your help in defining what being “all in” in elevating excellence means to you. Please click here to take a short survey to let us know how you are personally “all in.” The survey will be open until April 17. Your responses will help us move this from concept into action. We’re working to develop shared language that will be included in a pledge unveiled at the Nurses Week CNO Kick-off on May 5. You’ll have an opportunity there to sign this pledge, which will be created by UAMS Nursing.
I’d like to take a couple of minutes to expand on information our Assistant Director of Nursing Excellence and Magnet Programs Tiambé Kuykendall shared at the Town Hall during her presentation on Magnet redesignation, including results from our 2024 RN Engagement survey, where we improved in five of the seven categories we benchmark and outperformed the benchmark in Leadership Access and Responsiveness.
The five areas of improvement were:
- Adequacy of Staffing and Resources
- Fundamentals of Quality Care
- Leadership Access and Responsiveness
- Professional Development
- RN to RN Teamwork and Collaboration
The two areas where we scored below our goal were Autonomy and Interpersonal Relationships. As you can see, autonomy is an outlier among all the other categories. Our goal for the coming year is to better understand what autonomy means in the survey context – that you are trusted and empowered to practice at the top your of practice. Unlike in our personal world, it doesn’t mean that we get to do what we want, when we want. Those rules and regulations are there for a reason – to protect us and our patients from harm.
Our next Press Ganey RN Engagement Survey will open in June. This year, we are going beyond asking nurses to participate and are investing time and effort to ensure we get truly meaningful input.
Please know that we are coaching toward clarity, not toward a score. We need to know where we are doing well and what issues need to be addressed, but we need accurate information based on a common understanding of the questions and terminology. Thoughtful, informed responses from a wide cross-section of our nursing staff will tell the true story of what it means to practice nursing at UAMS Health.
In the seven weeks leading up to the survey, nursing leaders will discuss one of the seven survey categories during huddles and staff meetings. Each week will also include a pre- and post-discussion pulse check so leaders can gauge their teams’ understanding in real time and measure whether the education is making a difference.
We welcome and value your voice and your opinions, so we are investing in this pre-survey work to make sure your thoughts and ideas come across loud and clear.
We welcome and value your voice and your opinions, so we are investing in this pre-survey work to make sure your thoughts and ideas come across loud and clear.
This effort is a direct expression of Magnet 2.0: An Encore of Excellence and a reminder that you all matter, and we want to make your work as safe, engaging and rewarding as possible.
Don’t forget about next week’s April 7 deadline for ordering our new UAMS nursing t-shirts, which we will wear for a group photo during Nurses Week. Click here to order your t-shirt.
Have a great weekend!
Tammy Jones, PHD, RN, NE-BC
Chief Nursing Officer
Associate Vice Chancellor for Patient Care Services & Clinical Operations
Perioperative, Interventional & Imaging Services Division