Leading with Nurse’s Wellbeing in Mind with Alex Whitefield
Alex Whitefield knows what it’s like to be an exhausted bedside nurse. It isn’t ok for nurses to do the work that they do without a break away from their patients. So he decided to change that. Listen this week to hear what Alex is working on to help manage the complexities of scheduling our breaks.
Alex Whitefield was an ER nurse before becoming a nurse leader. During the time he was working at the bedside, he realized how important it was that nurses needed their breaks so that they could come back and care for their patients. Once he became a manager, he saw how complex it can be to schedule an entire unit of nurses to get their breaks without missing anyone. So he developed Breakalgo, as in break algorithm, so that if it wasn’t a good time for a nurse to take a break, they wouldn’t get lost in the chaos.
Alex Whitefield cares for the nurses he manages and it is clear when we discuss the importance of nurses caring for themselves. He has taken it upon himself to create a workplace that leads to caring for each other as well. It is nurse leaders like Alex that will change the landscape of the nursing profession.
ABOUT ALEX
Alex Whitefield is a highly skilled nurse leader and dedicated advocate for nursing excellence. With a strong background in acute medical and outpatient nursing, Alex brings extensive experience in nursing leadership and a passion for providing equitable medical care to all communities. Their commitment to addressing nursing burnout and fostering a sustainable industry for both nurses and patients is evident in their career trajectory.
Currently serving as the Medical Center Manager for Kaiser Permanente, Alex leads an exceptional team in delivering high-quality, evidence-based care to diverse populations within the clinic. Their leadership extends beyond the clinical setting, as evidenced by their involvement in hospital and healthcare system project development, implementation, and management.
In addition to their managerial role, Alex is a co-founder of Breakalgo, a dynamic nurse break platform aimed at reducing missed breaks, increasing transparency, and driving down operational costs. Through initiatives like Breakalgo, Alex continues to champion the well-being of nurses and the optimization of healthcare delivery.
Alex's journey in healthcare leadership began at Madigan Army Medical Center, where they served as a Registered Nurse in the Emergency Department. Subsequent roles at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital, MultiCare Health System, and Seattle Children's provided valuable experience in nursing management and project development.
Alex holds a Master's degree in Health Systems Leadership from Gonzaga University, complementing their Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Washington State University. Their combination of academic achievements and practical experience equips them with the expertise to lead initiatives aimed at advancing healthcare delivery and creating positive change within the industry.
With a steadfast commitment to nursing advocacy and a strong focus on equitable healthcare, Alex Whitefield continues to make significant contributions to the nursing profession, striving for a future where both nurses and patients can thrive.
LINKS
Find the Breakalago tool here www.breakalgo.com
Follow Alex’s journey on LinkedIn
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Beth Quaas
Hello everyone and welcome to Don't Eat Your Young. I'm your host, Beth Quoss. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to continue this podcast. And I hope that you are enjoying the speakers that I'm bringing to you. I would love to have a rating and a review from you wherever you listen to this podcast. It'll help it grow and we'll continue bringing these amazing guests to you today. I'm happy to have Alex Whitefield with us. He is helping. Nurses get the breaks they need during their shifts. He's created some software called Brake Algo and it's going to be a platform that will help nursing charge nurses and managers make sure that nurses get the breaks that they need and deserve. So I'm happy to bring Alex to the show today. Alex, I'm so excited to have you here today. Thanks for being a guest on Don't Eat your young.
Alex Whitefield
Absolutely. It's my pleasure to be here.
Beth Quaas
So tell us a little bit about yourself, your nursing career, and we're going to get into some amazing topics today. So let's get started.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, I'm a registered nurse. I trained at Washington State University. I got my bachelor. Was there. I started my career in a small regional emergency department. I moved from there to a larger emergency department here in Tacoma, WA and then move from there into actually the military world. I spent four years as a civilian. At our local military facility in the emergency department, there was quite burned out by the time I was through all those did some traveling in there, local travel assignments and just completely burnt out and made the jump into leadership. I was fortunate enough to. Come underneath a really exceptional leadership group and that's some phenomenal mentors and a great team to to help lead as well. I spent about almost four years overseeing a pediatric emergency department and now I've transitioned into outpatient world and kind of taking. Look at healthcare from the other side, but really every kind of step I take, it's so much more informing of the larger ecosystem that we're all trying to to navigate and and frankly for most. Us seems so fragmented and and broken.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
So it's interesting seeing it from both sides of the house.
Beth Quaas
And I'm excited for you to talk about your leadership because I think so often nursing leaders get bashed by those that are, that they're there to help. They're there to work for them. And a lot of, I would say a lot of people that haven't done leadership don't quite understand the spot that you're. Put in and talk to us a little bit about. That.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, I 100% agree. It's it's a hard transition. You are handed mandates, you're handed requirements that are. At times, very difficult to facilitate or to carry out, and I don't think staff understands how often or how much frontline leaders are pushing back, advocating, negotiating, doing everything in our powers to try to, to facilitate or, you know, make sure the. The frontline team is cared for and our patients get. The optimal care. It's tough. I mean, obviously there's we've all had horrible managers that.
Beth Quaas
Yeah.
Alex Whitefield
You know, epitomize all things wrong, but the bulk of the leaders I've met and come in contact with are all in the same boat. We're trying to do the best for our patients, our community and our our staff. And then I think the other part is the fact that as a leader, there's so much. That you know, but you can't say, and so you know, you'll have a difficult team member.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
You're having conversations with HR. You're having conversations with that person. You're sharing all this feedback, and you can't say anything.
Speaker
M.
Alex Whitefield
You know where you you can't mention, you know all the the context in which or why this this problem is persisting or not being addressed or the entire, you know, iceberg that's underneath this problem as well. And I think staff often see the the tip of the iceberg, but don't understand that there is on. Any of these movements, so much work in order to, you know. Uh, move somebody out of an organization or hold someone accountable or any address, any of those issues. And then there's this information. Know any notes except often that person, management and HR and you know our our hands, our hands are tight when it comes to having those conversations. And it I think it. Again, it's frustrating as a frontline staff member to not see progress.
Speaker
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
But it's hard as a leader when you're trying to, you know, be transparent and drive that information out when you literally cannot make, you know, make short of it.
Beth Quaas
That is so spot on. I'm glad you mentioned that, because oftentimes they hear one side of the story and it's not the leader side of the story because like you mentioned, you can't say anything, but. So it's very hard. I'm glad you said that.
Alex Whitefield
Obviously there there's, you know, if you think of a situation that happened. The loudest voice often carries that narrative on your unit.
Beth Quaas
Yeah.
Alex Whitefield
And that could be completely wrong. But as a leader, you don't get to go out and say, well, you know, we just had a formal meeting that was let let me set the record straight. No, that you don't have the right to go out have that conversation. And so often the narrative for the situation you'll hear about it as a leader, but that is. 100% false. Our actions it is very false. The bulk of the premises there are are false. That's not at all what happened, but you don't get to hold the staff meeting and and set the record straight. And I think that puts again puts the middle manager or the frontline manager really. White spot.
Beth Quaas
Well, I'm glad you've had some good mentors along the way, and I know in just talking to you that you care about nurses because what you're doing it by being here today is showing how much you care and support your team. What do you see as some of the biggest issues facing nurses right now, bedside nurses?
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up and and absolutely. You know, I, I I go back to, well, I go back to my experience on the floor when I was working in emergency department. I think #1 we well I I would say we need to go back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and examine that at the top of that is your personal safety. If if you haven't looked at that pyramid recently, you know, dust it off and and think about that in your own context of your own work, your day-to-day and. If we use that that lens to look at our conditions, our work environment, I think it's the perfect place to start. At number one, first and foremost is violence in the workplace. I think we must as a as a society address how to keep healthcare staff safe. I've been personally assaulted numerous times, some by, you know, people that are completely on at will, but definitely in many cases, people that knowingly. We're trying to attack myself and and coworkers, so I think that needs to be addressed. I I you know, I've also counseled. Patients for inappropriate sexual comments. All the entire the entire umbrella needs to be really strengthened to protect healthcare staff members from sexual harassment violence. The entire I mean it to me it all groups together. That's first and foremost second to that.
Beth Quaas
Right.
Alex Whitefield
I think we have to look at, you know our our fundamental needs as a human that's eating, drinking and resting and that's what led me to my work focusing on breaks we look at. Burnout in the workplace. We look at everybody you know, obviously having a tough day and then you compound that by inconsistent breast breaks in most cases across the nation, non-existent breast breaks and obviously it sets the stage for people to be not at their best by the end of their shift. By the pure physical Physiology of their body, going that long period of time with no water, no food. You know non-existent breaks to to regroup mentally and and kind of process things. It's it's no wonder that so many folks are choosing to leave the profession after two or five years, and those who resent, you know, remain after 10 or 15 years are so burnt out because, again, that. Constant pressure that they they face in the workplace.
Beth Quaas
Do you see? The upper administration, understanding that and getting that and making a movement to change things.
Alex Whitefield
I think there's a a big disconnect between frontline, obviously. I mean I think everybody can agree that there's a disconnect between executive leadership and what's happening on the floors. I think there are some executive leaders that some organizations that get it, they round. They you know, I've there's even still some out there that will function clinically at a very, very small small small bit but will still pull a shift here and there or or do things. But there is that disconnect and I I think it. It nullifies that experience of the frontline staff to not even be able to understand or empathize or sit, let alone sympathize with frontline staff. So there's a huge, huge disconnect, I think in most organizations between. Upper upper leadership in the front lines really especially related. To brakes.
Beth Quaas
I would agree. And we all preach from the top of the mountain to say we need more nurses in those see sweet spots. We need them there because they understand and even physician leaders, you know, they know their world, but they don't always know the nursing world. And so we need more people there. Advocating for us.
Alex Whitefield
Absolutely. Absolutely. We we need we need seats. I would advocate. We obviously need to be in the C-Suite. But I also think we need to be, you know, in our safe houses and we need to be pushing things at the government level. Again, so much now that you kind of learn a little bit more in the leadership world as far as the restraints that that upper leadership has. But so much of our practice is dictated by our state legislators and our state codes that dictate our practice. CMS has, I mean, you want to talk about just about every aspect of our care is in some huge books that get pulled out. During our inspections, but so much of our issues, I think stem from there or could be addressed in, in the political side of. Of. Our systems.
Beth Quaas
I completely agree with that and I've gone out to Washington DC the last couple of years. We have a conference out there every year and we meet with our state legislators while we're out there. They're just people and they want from us and they don't know what we do and they're so easy to talk to. So I too, I agree. Get out there, talk to legislators and go do the job. We would love that.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, yeah. I I I would love you know what my my dream future state would be that politicians would. Want to court the nursing vote?
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
You know you you drive through town, you know, obviously we're coming into political season, you know, firefighters endorse this, the International Brotherhood of electrical electrical workers endorse this candidate. Why nurses, I mean, we are a huge work group national. Why we have not been able to bind together to find an advocacy window to flex that muscle, make politicians come to the table to talk to us, to find our needs and figure out how they can again to address our needs. Court our vote. At the same time. That is when we will truly be powerful. And getting those things done, other organizations have less folks than us. And yield tremendous power within the national discourse. So I think it's a great opportunity and if we could find that cohesiveness, we're not going to all agree. Again, 8020, I would tend to believe that. Nurses as a whole could agree on about 80% of topics and if we could come down. To a core. 80% that we're all like, hey, we got to bind together. And if a politician isn't on board for these, these you know, principles, then that's where we need to stand up and and make her voice be heard and and and flex that muscle.
Beth Quaas
Yeah, I was. I would encourage nurses out there. They're all busy, they're all tired and on their day off, you know what they deserve a break. But take an hour a week and look into some nursing things and try to get involved or.
Alex Whitefield
We will.
Beth Quaas
See what you can do to help those leaders that are really fighting hard for positive change in the nursing profession. Then.
Alex Whitefield
Absolutely, absolutely. They're out there and there's, you know, there we already have a handful of nurses in some legislative positions and, you know, you go into LinkedIn and you see nurse, nurse politicians left and right, and they get great traction and they're talking to all sorts of. Of people getting things moved, bringing escalating situations so the power is there, we just need to to find a way to back those folks and. Kind of starts get the ball rolling.
Beth Quaas
I agree. So taking it back to the unit level. Where do you see? Change that can happen now. On a smaller scale.
Alex Whitefield
So again, my my big focus is brakes. That's where my passion sits. I am, you know, the brake nurse, and I've worked on some software solutions for that as well. I I think first and foremost, again, we got to address violence. I think that is something at a unit level. You know, we should be having. Drills, whatever we need to do to to make sure staff feel safe, that's first and foremost. 2nd from that I think we need to focus on brakes. We need to quit acting as if at the unit level and everybody can do this no matter where you're at. The culture of break is a luxury needs to shift. To break is an any sort of break is a necessity and I've talked to plenty of folks across the nation.
Beth Quaas
Great.
Alex Whitefield
Where brakes are treated, you know, like a Maserati or, you know, some some fanciful thing that that's, you know, good nurse doesn't need a break. You know, you take your drink, drink some water in between your, your your stuff or when you're charts. We gotta we gotta quit that, that uh, that narrative and it needs to be replaced with brakes from test for just a plain necessity. Regular brakes are if you want a break that has no reflection of your clinical ability, your mental strength, your physical strength, whatever that is. It is a pure necessity that everybody should have. Every unit can do that support each other. I don't. I'm not a big fan of the buddy brake process. That probably is the predominant system across. The across the nation where you know, obviously you take somebody else's assignment, but I think any leader could, at least at the minimum facilitate and again change that cultural narrative on your unit to say, let's work hard to make sure each other, we all get a break, get off the unit to step off the unit. Drink water, eat food, mentally decompress. Then I think on you know, several states have much more rigid laws where breaks are really cooked into. Our staffing as well as they're just they're legally required I think on those stages we we you know leaders need to step back and take a systematic approach and make sure that they have the adequate staff to to follow those laws and then they need to have a plan. I think I've seen so many units where it's everything's kind of if you are going to talk about breaks, it's it's done in a paper and pencil method and you know we're laissez-faire. Everybody kind of go at it and see how you do. And it's much more complicated that than that to try to get it all organized. So come up with a systematic. Approach to to address those breaks and get them accomplished like those are a couple.
Beth Quaas
And. Those are amazing things to talk about. I'm sure there's pushback from leadership if you're talking about hiring more FTE to cover those breaks, but. It is the only thing that makes sense.
Alex Whitefield
100 percent, 100%. And you know it's a small investment. You know they they just I just saw some articles about the $100,000 signing bonus in California. We all know the cost of travelers obviously that that conversation has been pretty strong and.
Speaker
Ah.
Beth Quaas
Yeah.
Alex Whitefield
And the whole community, we all know that patients are being turned away. We're burning up nurses. You look at the finances of of burn. Went out. And that one FTD or bringing in an additional float is frankly pennies on the dollar?
Speaker
MHM.
Alex Whitefield
And if you're able to keep your staff supported, you don't need to hire more agency. You are able to retain. That is, that is just good money spent. Obviously there's a quality component. There and we can talk about the quality implications of working long, long hours with no breaks or any of double assignments. All those sorts of things. There's all implications there, but there's a Reacher there, there's a business model to be made. It just requires, unfortunately it requires a. A longer term. View of that return.
Beth Quaas
Right. And think about turnover and how much it costs just to train a nurse into a new role. Retain nurses and that number goes down to almost zero unless you have to hire new people. So you're right. Pennies on the dollar to have the staffing model.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah. And I think you know I. I appreciate the efforts to train more nurses, we do need more nurses. We're we are an aging. We are easing community but we do need to focus on retainment we we need to focus on keeping that because what we're going to get is a brain drain. We're going to lose so much. You know, I think back when I started, I had nurses that were 20. You know, I my 2 mentors were 20 plus year nurses.
Beth Quaas
Yeah.
Alex Whitefield
That had seen everything, heard everything, wrote the book about it, had intuition that I couldn't even comprehend on day one. And I had that ability to pull from their knowledge base, they could look across the unit and tell you a problem. You know, I I didn't that I you know I didn't have that in. You know I didn't have that knowledge they had it and they worked obviously bestowing that upon us. And so as we you know as this the hemorrhage continues. And we continue losing more and more folks from our community. We are also losing their knowledge. That's not now being passed on to the next generation. And so I I do fear, I fear that loss. I think it's I I don't think that conversation is being had. And the implication is going to be severe.
Beth Quaas
That is a great point. Experience in nursing is you can't put a price on it because you can't get that from a book. You can't learn that by taking a course. It's really experience. And I just want to say that don't eat your young isn't an age thing. Don't eat your older staff either.
Speaker
Yep.
Beth Quaas
Don't make fun of them because technology doesn't come easy to them. We have to rely on them for the great information and the knowledge that they have and graduate. I'm glad you brought that point up.
Speaker
Yeah.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah. Hey, you go into downtime. Guess your favorite people. Go go to, go to, go to, go to paper charts in any unit across the nation and I guarantee you people will be well. I mean, we're seeing these these cyber attacks, but go on those units and then tell me who you're who you're clamoring towards. It's that.
Speaker
Yes.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
That old school nurse that you know started on on paper charts and hates our HR. And yeah, they have knowledge to share and and again our patients, our disease processes don't care about, you know, if you have electronic medical records, but their presentation, all the information.
Beth Quaas
Great.
Alex Whitefield
We have are those older nurses have just such a keen understanding of something that? I don't think can always be put in warts.
Beth Quaas
I completely agree. So Alex, talk to us about what you're doing in solving the problem.
Alex Whitefield
So again, breaks are are complicated. I I work out of Washington state. We have some pretty tight labor laws. We are required in Washington state to give a 15 or actually 10 minute break every four hours a meal break between hour two and hour 5 second. Will break between hour 5 and hour 10. And it's complex. You know, when you have a 12 hour staff member that technically requires 4 breaks. You have 1520 people on your unit, you have four or five different start times. You put that entire, you put all of those components together and it's a really complex picture to try to stack all those breaks in there. Make sure everyone's getting them equitably. And then make sure your your float or brake nurse is, you know, judiciously climbing through and and picking off people and and again being fair, distributing those breaks as well. And I was fortunate when I came into a leadership position to that really solid team and there was a. A mandate that everyone's going to get there. And as assistant nurse manager, working with our unit based team, we created schedules and a systematic approach towards it. We had tremendous success, shout out to Mary Bridge emergency department here in in Tacoma for for that phenomenal. Work. And. But it took a lot of work. It was. It was a laborious process and the other downside was, you know, you get a code, you get a tough admission, you get a sick call. Chargers gets whatever happens, your plan is garbage because.
Speaker
MHM.
Alex Whitefield
Well, now the entire plant's garbage and it's not going to adjust. And so I connected with software engineer friend of mine and we were chatting on it one day and he's like, man, I I think we could make a program. That could solve all those problems and more or less stack it up. So what we've created is a software platform called Break. Logo. It is a dynamic scheduling tool, so you would I guess you'd say probably dynamics management tool and so you put in your break rules you tell it you know when the break windows are going to occur and then you put in your staff and it populates a real time schedule for everybody. Work from and then when Beth. When you're in a tough case that runs over or, you know the patient crumps in your now you know 5 deep you have the entire department in your room helping get that patient turned around. Obviously your staffing plan or that plan for getting brakes is is garbage, but what break algo does is it's going to continuously reshift, reschedule, restack all those breaks to accommodate. So it's always going to give you an opportunity to get the brakes completed and and it it's that dynamic approach because we. As healthcare workers, this is what's unique about this and why you don't see other. Other industries address this is the fact that. Unlike pretty much any other industry, obviously there's a couple of exceptions we don't get to walk up the unit.
Beth Quaas
Right.
Alex Whitefield
We don't get to, you know, hunt. Our patients say, hey, you know. To our unit secretaries watch my opinion. Like, no, you don't get to have your unit secretary watch your patient. You are. Accountable legally, morally, ethically accountable for that patient and their care until you hand it off to somebody else. And so going on a break is not a simple task. And the fact that you have to hand that patient off to an equally licensed and capable nurse makes that even more complicated. So that's number one. And then #2 is. You work in dynamic work conditions, so you know you can make a plan.
Speaker
And.
Alex Whitefield
And Healthcare is going to destroy it. Patients are going to destroy it. Our staffing is going to destroy it. You know, we've all walked into the unit, man, this can be a great day. We have All Star team here. We're we're we're low on you know, we're just we're right and then you know 27 minutes later major trauma comes in. Patient Crumps family member shows up and you know, throws A throws the entire unit and tell spend sick. Call everything. All these components add up to the fact that plans don't last long in healthcare. And So what we've done again is we've created a dynamic tool. So it's always going to continue. To adjust and make plans. And so we think that by approaching it in a systematic way that's dynamic, we're going to see better results and and less folks are going to miss breaks. We're going to be more efficient going from one break to the next. And and then the other component that we have to have and and really we don't have as well is is metrics and understanding of how we're doing on breaks labor cost are significant part of the. The equation for a hospital and really besides saying yes or no, I got my brakes. There's not a lot of data that back to drive process improvement. And so, so much of our data is lagging so much of our data is, you know, not very useful if you wanted to go back. You know, doing autopsy of your last pay period. Say, oh, well, why do we have such high this or that? Or why does Beth have such high missed brakes? You don't have that. That the fidelity of that, that information. And so our tool will bring that data forward so that your leaders together with maybe your unit. This team, or whoever wants to take a look at that, is able to drill down on the data and say, you know what, we need to make some adjustments. But you can't just make.
Speaker
Hey.
Alex Whitefield
You got to make those adjustments informed, and that's what we're trying to do is, is bring that information and transparency forward.
Beth Quaas
I love that and thank you for talking about data, because how often do we hear I always get this or I never get this. And then you look at the data and those statements are completely false. You're skewed, so you're right looking at it and taking the approach that you are is going to be so important. So to understand your software, is it the charge nurse that puts in the names and then do they go back and adjust? How does it work?
Alex Whitefield
So the data would be pre logged so you know as a. As a hospital you would, you know as a unit you would determine we even cook in a hand off time. So if you're in a in a you know intensive care unit. Obviously that handoff time is going to be longer. So we have hand off time cooked in there. All that will be preloaded and then the hope would be that you'd have a scheduler or someone like that pre populate the tool with the staff members so the staff members will be in there as a charge nurse. You'll come in, you'll have a a, A kind of system view with all the staff members on it. It would look, yeah, so you'd have a system view. You'd be able to take a look at that. You'll see everybody on there. Your job would be to validate that, yes. Schedules correct couple clicks. You can add people a couple clicks. You can delete people so the labor of getting folks in there is very minimal. There's big concern about. You know, does it integrate with Kronos or other tools? Unfortunately it. Doesn't. But you are able to get our folks loaded in there quickly, much faster than you could hand right on to a staffing chief. So those folks are going to go in there and it'll blow in your, your YOUR staff members and the brakes are going to get the second phase of that would be as a charge nurse, your job would be to assign somebody to give those breaks so. It's going to give you work queues. And so you'll see a work queue. Beth is a charge nurse. You could say. You know Melissa, I want you to work for Q #1 and literally she can pull up on her phone. You know, whether that's hopefully it's possible provided phone may be able to pull up on there and they'll see, you know, the next person that needs to go on break. They'll be able to see that on their phone. They click. Start brake, give handoff, and then they're again. When that breaks complete, they'll hit complete. The break falls off the queue and the person is able to go to the next person. Melissa comes up to Beth. You're in the middle of that crashing patient. You obviously can't step away. She goes to the next person in line. You get rescheduled. And so it's always looking for an opportunity to get it break completed as early as possible and if there's any sort of hiccups, it's going to reshuffle the deck and try to stack you back in. We've all been in the situation. I can't say we've all a lot of us have been in this situation. You're a float break going around. You come up to Beth. She's slammed with this, you know, decompensating. Patient. We can't go right now. All right, come back and get you. End of shifts. You're in the break room, getting ready to leave. You know best and the best not looking very good. What's the matter? Oh, well, you know, I you never came back and gave me my break. We've all been there. I don't know, I've.
Beth Quaas
We've all been there. Absolutely, absolutely.
Alex Whitefield
Multiple times. And it is. You know, you talk about guilt. You know, you feel so bad that you're, like, man, you were slammed all day. That patient was that nightmare. Great job. I'm really sorry for forgetting about you. And So what this tool will do is beths going to continue cycling on top. Beth is going to be the top, top, top until somebody comes over and you're actually able to get that completed cause that's the person, frankly. That's person that really needs it, and the tool is going to make sure that person sitting on top and you know first priority to get back out. So again it's a systematic approach. We we, we can't underline enough when you have.
Beth Quaas
Right.
Alex Whitefield
Between 10 and 20% of your day dedicated towards breaks to be managing this on a piece of paper is pure insanity really.
Beth Quaas
It is ohh my gosh, this is incredible. It truly is #1. It's going to save. That charge nurse from running around asking, did you get your break? Did you give that break? Do we need that? Sucks up a significant amount of time and.
Alex Whitefield
Yes.
Beth Quaas
At the end of the day. And I'm not seeing this happens often, but sometimes time cards get well. I missed my break or I missed my lot. I'm going to no lunch.
Speaker
MHM.
Beth Quaas
But you did get your lunch and it says right here, you got your lunch. And. I don't want to bring the. Negative. Out but that. Can add up to a significant amount of money too, if. People are clocking no lunch and then it puts them into a different. Pay tier and so I from a management standpoint, I think that would be a great selling.
Alex Whitefield
Exactly.
Beth Quaas
Point.
Alex Whitefield
Absolutely. I I think charge nurse as well and and I don't know if you've had this experience. Where you know so that your flow comes to you, everybody's got your brakes, Beth units good. Everyone's got their brakes. Can I go home? Early. Well, everybody's got the. Yes, everyone's got their brakes, OK? I don't care. Sounds good. Enjoy your evening.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
We're, you know, crash cards are checked. Yeah, scratch cards are good. OK, sounds great. Get out of here. Have a good night. As soon as that door clicks. Hey Alex, am I going to get my break? Like what? Whoa, whoa. What do you mean? Oh, none of us have got our breaks. And you're like. How have you not? She just said. Well, I didn't want my break 5 minutes ago. I'm like, OK, all right, so again, this tool is you're going to be able to pull up a screen and you're going to see your entire unit. Every break is more or less kind of an icon, and you're going to be able to see whether or not those breaks are completed when they were completed, but it's going to give the the charge. It's gonna empower the charge nurse with that, that, that transparency. And you know, I've also I have one nurse in mind.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
Right now, excellent float brake nurse. She was working magic. We also all know those brake nurses that. You might get a break and again provide that data back, provide that feedback back because we we've got to get better at. M. This. Both as a culture of the unit, I mean that's the other feedback I hear from from different leaders. It's like well, people don't. Want. To take breaks and like, well, that's a that's a cooked in culture that that doesn't want to accept a break. We got to break that. We got to say. All right, Beth is a qualified nurse. She's exceptional. I can hand. I'm in the middle of this and this I can safely hand that off. I need to safely hand that off. And I. Need to go on my break.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
Versus. I have to have everything buttoned up that's going to come by and watch my patients for 15 minutes and she's not going to do anything. No, you're a qualified nurse. You can go push those meds. You can start that. You can, you know, help out with whatever needs to be done. But. That. Culture has to change and then we need to hold. We need to to again create a systematic process for completing brakes. We need to get everybody in line to be quick and efficient on that as well because again. It's it's a finite. Resource. Nursing nursing staff doesn't just, you know, it's it's hard to come by and so we need to be respectful of that, that resource. As well.
Beth Quaas
What you are doing is going to help nurses across the nation, and I hope, across the world. I really hope this can be adopted because it's such an important thing and it's important for nurses to know, like you said. We're qualified if we're working on that unit, but if you feel like someone's giving you a break and they're not going to do the job that you want them to do, teach them. Don't hold back. Don't go talk about them because they do this or that and you don't like it. Teach them if you. Know something and someone does. Please just let's get everybody on the same team.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, yeah, lift up.
Beth Quaas
Yes, yes, I love that because we've all seen it.
Speaker
Yeah.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, and. And they're qualified and you know we we also have philosophical differences in practice.
Speaker
MHM.
Alex Whitefield
And you know, I'm more on the minimalist charting side. And there is often, obviously, a novelist out there as well. You can tell which side of the the paradigm I'm on that doesn't make them more qualified or me less qualified. It's it's a it's a change in process and so, but I'm just as qualified to, you know, push some morphine and you know, start a Med. And whatever else, but embrace and trust those folks and and again teach and communicate like, hey, you really should document this or, you know, writing an essay and not doing this, these other things. That's an issue too. So, but be open, listen and and learn and teach. That's how we don't need. Our young.
Beth Quaas
That is how we don't eat our young. And if you put the patient at the forefront every time.
Speaker
Yep.
Beth Quaas
This won't happen.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, 100 percent, 100%.
Beth Quaas
I love what you're doing. I'm so happy that you are a leader in an organization, and I know you are a great mentor to those that are coming up behind you. Which? Should make everyone feel good and I hope the one thing I want to say to nurses as well. Support your leaders, support your charge and our support your assistant head and or support your your manager. Go ask them how you doing today.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah.
Beth Quaas
As. They need it too. They need it to. They're burnt out. They are sandwiched in the middle of sometimes 2 opposing forces and learn, learn what their struggles are as well.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, agreed. It it it's a lonely seat. I and again we choose it. And I'm not a victim to it, but we don't. Well, we.
Beth Quaas
It is.
Alex Whitefield
We shouldn't be friends. It sounds kind of messed up, but you know, when I I had such great when I was in the some, you know, especially that again such great camaraderie, good friends with, with my colleagues, good friends with the physicians. We knew each other's families all that sort of stuff.
Beth Quaas
No, that's.
Alex Whitefield
When you step into a leadership position, those those lines, those lines have to be. Defined I'm your leader.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
Of course I want to know about you as a person. We're going to have conversations. I want to know about that, but there, there. Is a thick. Line between. You know we're we're not necessarily friends. I'm your. I'm your leader. And that at times leaves leaves you pretty empty because it is. It does get a little long. I don't know not to. Not to sound like. A victim, but.
Beth Quaas
No, but it it does. And so let's all help each other.
Alex Whitefield
Exactly.
Beth Quaas
Let's write this ship and move forward in the best way possible. You you said it. There's so many of us. And if we all come together and decide to collectively move forward in a positive way, there's nothing we can't do.
Alex Whitefield
100 percent, 100% yeah, I think there's messing up my number here. Five and a half million nurses in the nation.
Beth Quaas
There's a lot.
Alex Whitefield
There's a lot. On. We have the power to sway. All the way up to the top and we have to bind together. We have to treat ourselves like we treat our patients. We have to treat our colleagues like we treat our patients. If we use the same lens that we, you know, the same kindness, empathy. That we use towards our patients and our our colleagues, we we did all of those things. This bill would be righted quickly and we're going to get there. I'm I'm confident there's so many great folks working on this and. This is the loudest I've heard the conversation about work conditions and and getting it and getting it corrected, so I'm hopeful.
Beth Quaas
And they're. People like you that are putting the time in. Trying to understand the problem and then coming up with the solution, so I applaud you and the work you are doing and I hope this just gets out to so many people so that we can take care of the people that are taking care of our patients.
Alex Whitefield
Exactly. Exactly. You know, we won't get there until we figure out that 12 1/2 hours of work with no breaks is not the equation to create long term employees.
Beth Quaas
Yes.
Alex Whitefield
And until that becomes a universal fact, that toe nap hours, no consistent breaks does not equal a well engaged working group. Then we won't get there. We will continue to see even or you know the the hemorrhage will.
Speaker
Stop.
Beth Quaas
Right, I agree completely. Thank you so much for coming today. Thank you for talking to us about what the problems are and some solutions that we can move forward with right away.
Alex Whitefield
Course. Yeah, yeah, I anybody who wants to reach out. I I'd love to talk about brakes. I love to hear people's stories. I think it it's it's fuel for for my my passion, which is obviously moving this agenda forward. Anybody that's interested in in seeing or a demo product probably LinkedIn is my greatest tool to get a hold of me and yeah, reach out. Let's talk about breaks and you know even if we can just do a small shift. Even changed the philosophy of the culture of your unit to support brakes, whatever we could do, let's let's move that ball forward. But yeah, let's do something.
Beth Quaas
That's great. We'll have all of your contact information in the show notes too. So like Alex said, reach out to him, find out what he's doing and. Let's make improvements.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, absolutely.
Beth Quaas
Thank you, Alex. I really appreciate it and we have not heard the last of you.
Alex Whitefield
I hope not. I hope not. The the the ultimate goal. National standard for brakes. No matter what state you're working in, you should be getting consistent regular breaks. If my grandmother in you know Indiana, she should get a nurse that's just as rested and mentally cared for as anyone else. So ultimate goal is to get this to be a national or. Even international standard, because that's what we. To do.
Beth Quaas
Great. Thank you so much everyone. Check out break. I'll go if you aren't getting the breaks that you deserve and let's move this forward. Thanks, al.
Alex Whitefield
Beth, thank you so much for for your work as well and your advocacy on the behalf of nurses and and also, you know, highlighting nurse leaders because that's not. That is not an easy seat, and I've seen it. Obviously we've all seen it. I think what's saddest about nurse leaders is you, you take off and it's the the star of the unit jumps into that seat. And man, a lot of them. It's it's a career Ender. And so that's really the sad part. And now they're gone because they just, it just didn't work for them. And so let's look at our ways. We can support those folks too, because they're trying their best.
Beth Quaas
Right. I want to bring you back another day and justice have a conversation about that because that is an entire episode in itself. I would love.
Alex Whitefield
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Beth Quaas
Thank you, Alex. I appreciate it and we look forward to hearing from you again.
Alex Whitefield
Awesome. Thank you, Beth. Thank you, everyone.