Gary Passama

Gary Passama retired as president and CEO of NorthBay Healthcare on March 31, 2017. An active blogger since 2010, here’s a collection of his work.

A New Era

October 08, 2015
 

A contingent of 20 NorthBay Healthcare nursing managers and staff nurses are in Atlanta, Ga., this week at the annual meeting of the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Representing NorthBay Medical Center and NorthBay VacaValley Hospital, they are there because both hospitals achieved the coveted designation of “Magnet Hospitals.”

Becoming a Magnet hospital is a long journey covering years. It requires achieving some very tough standards. NorthBay’s two hospitals are among only 27 in California with the Magnet designation. Only 422 hospitals in the nation are so distinguished. Most California Magnet hospitals are major academic teaching medical centers. Our two join that elite group.

For the past four years hundreds of NorthBay nurses participated in a variety of activities with the objective of attaining Magnet status. Monthly day-long self-governance meetings were conducted in our Green Valley Conference Center. Non-nursing clinical and administrative departments supported these activities. All of us at NorthBay share in the joy of this achievement.

There is something else going on as well in Atlanta.

Kathy Richerson, NorthBay’s recently retired Chief Nursing Officer, is among the NorthBay delegation. It was Kathy’s vision of the professional nurse which led NorthBay to start and finish the journey to Magnet designation. She was a role model for our nurses and her leadership transformed nursing in our two hospitals.

It was Kathy’s idea to invite Traci Duncan, her newly arrived successor as Chief Nursing Officer, to attend the magnet meeting. Traci left the position of Associate Chief Nursing Officer at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, to join NorthBay. She previously served as Chief Nursing Officer for Swedish Health System in Seattle. Traci has extensive experience with the Magnet process.

In faraway Atlanta, Kathy will symbolically pass the baton of leadership to Traci as a new era for nursing begins at NorthBay, one based on a solid foundation. It will fall to Traci to build on that foundation, including retaining the Magnet designation. We know sustaining this high level of nursing professionalism is even harder than achieving the designation the first time. But we will succeed. It’s the NorthBay Way.

Tags: gary passama, healthcare insider

Comments

 
  1. Diane
    October 08, 2015 at 08:20
     

    We are so proud of our nurses!! Amazing, dedicated professionals!

     
 

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