The NPD team at OSF HealthCare is responsible for developing innovative education and professional development programs to meet the strategic goals of our health system. Since the team's inception in 2015, the health system has grown to span 17 acute care facilities and over 150 ambulatory sites. The programs developed by the NPD team must be broad enough to span the care continuum while addressing the unique needs of each care area. The strategic goals of our health system are aligned with our mission and vision while driving clinical excellence. Once the strategic goals of the health system are defined for the fiscal year, the clinical excellence plan is developed by the clinical executives. The clinical excellence plan addresses how the clinical teams will support the achievement of the strategic goals of the organization.

This article dives into how our NPD team increased alignment with our health system’s goals. Through environmental scanning, we identified an opportunity to provide better system-wide support for our organization’s clinical excellence plan.   This resulted in a revised NPD job description and team goals.

Role Development, Collaboration, and Planning

After rapid growth in the system, our NPD team questioned the impact we had on the achievement of our organization’s strategic goals and subsequent clinical excellence plan. The system NPD manager was a novice leader, yet knew the NPD department was responsible for improving outcomes for the system, our employees, and the patients served, She acknowledged it was her responsibility to ensure alignment to the organization strategic goals (Harper, 2022). The system NPD manager shared the concerns of the team with the NPD director and vice president (VP) who encouraged the NPD manager to develop a plan following the town hall.

Each year, OSF HealthCare employees are informed of the strategic goals through town halls, during which senior leadership share how their division will support the achievement of these goals. The NPD team attends the town hall for nursing administration, where the clinical excellence plan is shared alongside the system strategic goals. Following the town hall, the NPD team debriefs to develop team goals to connect their work to the clinical excellence plan and strategic goals.

During this year’s debrief, NPD team members shared with the NPD manager that they needed a way to apply their work directly to the clinical excellence plan and strategy before developing team goals. The NPD manager brainstormed with the NPD leadership team and identified an opportunity for the team to build visual representations of how their work aligned to the clinical excellence plan and strategic goals. The NPD manager then challenged NPD team members to build a visual representation demonstrating the direct alignment of their work to the strategy, using materials that were safe for the workspace and small enough to sit on a table. Team members could work independently on their visual representation, or elect to work with a partner. Content presented at the town hall was available for the NPD team to reference as needed. The NPD manager and team members agreed on a timeline of three weeks to prepare the visual representations.

After the deadline, NPD team members presented their the visual representations by speaking to the creative materials used, connection with the clinical excellence plan, and  strategy (Figure 1) with time for discussion and feedback. A variety of materials were used, including food and children’s toys in the visual representation. During the discussion, team members shared how the activity helped them connect their work to the clinical excellence plan and strategy. Team members also shared that this activity allowed them to reflect on their work and acknowledge the growth that occurred within the team and organization.

 

From Activity to Advancement: Redefining Our Role

Following the activity and discussion, the NPD manager and director discussed the opportunity to revise the existing job description of the NPD team members to reflect the growth of the team and organization.

The NPD manager, under the direction of the director and VP, revised the existing job description to be in alignment with standardized descriptive language of NPD practice from Nursing Professional Development: Scope and Standards of Practice (2022), and to elevate the team as experts in NPD practice and education science. Collaboration with our organizational development and human resources teams was integral to this process. With the new job description approved, each NPD team member completed an NPD role transition survey and our internal Leader Readiness Assessment to develop personalized pathways to enhance the skills of the team and prepare them to lead the organization as professional development experts.

From there, the NPD manager drafted team goals for FY25 to reflect the work of the team and their impact on the clinical excellence plan and system strategy. SMART goals were developed with the team (Figure 2) and tactics were identified under each goal to support attainment. The NPD manager identified metrics of success for each goal, which were then approved by the director and VP. During quarterly meetings with the VP and director, the team discusses progress, wins and barriers to goal attainment. Individual progress towards goal attainment is discussed in monthly 1:1s with the NPD manager.

 

We continue to operationalize internal tools to ensure the NPD team is consistently utilizing the ADDIE model for design and development. The NPD manager utilizes an intake form to ensure requests are aligned to the clinical excellence plan and overall system strategy further supporting our drive for goal attainment.

Next Steps: Building Trust and Operationalizing the Feedback Loop

The NPD leadership at our organization desires to ensure our team is appropriately sized and aligned with programs and projects that inspire them. We continue to evaluate progress towards team goals and provide individual and team coaching for the NPD team as we work to refine our skills as education experts. While there is not a formal reporting structure for the site NPD teams to the system NPD team, we continue to work on fostering a collaborative relationship through our systemwide education council.

This intentional focus will support our alignment to the system strategic goals and clinical excellence plan as the site NPD teams have a pathway to bring forward concerns from their local environmental scanning to the system level.  

NPD specialists are accountable to ensure our NPD offerings are aligned to the strategic goals of the health system. Leveraging the strategic goals of the health system and clinical excellence plan provides a pathway for aligning our team goals with measurable tactics each quarter. This pathway provides ongoing development for the NPD team as we seek to lead the health system as experts in nursing professional development.

References

Harper, M.G. (Ed). (2022). Leadership in Nursing Professional Development: An Organization and System Focus (2^nd ed). Association for Nursing Professional Development.

Harper, M. G., & Maloney, P. (Eds.). (2022). Nursing professional development: Scope and standards of practice (4th ed.). Association for Nursing Professional Development.