Bill Klaproth (Host): This is Today in Nursing Leadership, a podcast from the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. I'm Bill Klaproth. So, how can health systems develop nurse managers at scale while also supporting professional certification?

Well, joining me to talk about how AdventHealth approached that challenge are Jennifer Posada, Co-chair of the Clinical Manager Advisory Council and Senior Nurse Manager at AdventHealth, and Blake Cabrera, Chair of the Clinical Manager Advisory Council and Senior Nurse Manager at AdventHealth. We're going to talk about why they partnered with AONL to bring CNML certification preparation directly to their nurse managers and what they learned from the experience.

Jennifer and Blake, welcome, and thank you for your time. Jennifer, let me start with you. Let's start with the need you were seeing within the organization first. What were you hearing or observing among your nurse managers that led you to explore a hosted CNML certification review course?

Jennifer Posada: Hi, Bill. Thank you. I would say that our campus started its Magnet journey. So, we're on our journey to get accredited for a Magnet. And with that, we started shared governance, one of those being our clinical manager advisory council. And within, our clinical manager advisory council. We noticed that there was a need for managers to be certified. Like, there was a large number of managers that were part of the council that did not have a certification. And so, we were thinking, "How can we get a group together where we can get like mass certifications?" And that's where AONL came in.

Host: Yeah, that really is important, the certification program, and provide that critical training for nurse managers. So Blake, there are obviously different ways to provide this type of professional development. Ultimately, why did you decide to partner with AONL? And what made bringing the program directly into the organization attractive compared with sending individual nurse leaders to outside programs?

William Cabrera, MBA, MSN, RN, PCCN, CNML: Yeah, of course. And thank you both for having us. Just to elaborate a little bit on what Jen was saying, we did start our Magnet journey here in the last year or two. CMAC was one of those first breakout groups as part of our shared governance councils.

And while nurse managers are a part of that, I do want to specify that there is a vast number of different types of leaders that we have within our clinical manager advisory council. It was actually once called Nurse Manager Advisory Council, but we wanted to grow and really get as much buy-in from other types of leaders. But with that, during that process, the nurse managers were, of course, the larger volume of leaders within our council. And we really wanted to set out to certify as many people as possible.

And so, we reviewed multiple different types of certifications, discussed it with our council and our teams, and we really landed with AONL just because we could bring you guys in and have a large classroom style conversation and training so that we could have a goal to have this many individuals within CMAC certified, by a given timeline.

AONL really helped us with that. And we were able to have 60 of our managers attend the course, as well as be eligible for the practice exam and then to test which was a pretty big investment by AdventHealth and us, which, of course, we are forever grateful for.

Host: So, it sounds like this was a great way for you to develop a large group of managers at a time, which sounds like a great way to do that. So Jennifer, what was the experience like for the nurse managers who participated, and what feedback did you hear from them following the program?

Jennifer Posada: Yeah. So, I myself got to participate in the training. It was in-person. It was an all-day, like, event. I thought it was great. It was great to have the subject matter expert there teaching us the content. It was great that we got provided the handout, the booklet, so that we're able to take it back and study.

Feedback that we heard was that it was really great to be able to spend the day within the work week to be able to focus on our own professional growth and development. We really got to disconnect and lean into the content that was being taught. And then, at the end, if we got to pass the practice test, then we actually get a voucher to be able to take the test free of charge and thus achieve certification.

So overall, it was a really great experience. As Blake had mentioned, we were able to have 60 managers participate, not just nurse managers, but assistant nurse managers or other people that have been leaders for a while. We have more interest, so we're looking to make this into a recurring thing.

Host: So Jennifer, what outcomes have you seen with the program when it comes to nurse managers pursuing or achieving CNML certification?

Jennifer Posada: When CMAC first came about, we actually took a survey to see how many managers were actually certified. And at the time, it was only about 16% of our nurse managers that were holding a certification. And now, I'm happy to report that we're about 55% of our managers that are now certified, and that's with having over a hundred clinical managers as a part of our council.

So, it's been really, really great.. And like I said, we look forward to continuing to do these kinds of things and really promote professional growth and development.

William Cabrera, MBA, MSN, RN, PCCN, CNML: Even outside of CMAC, the more of us that have become certified, we've started to kind of set that example for our assistant managers and supervisors and other leaders that roll up to us, that, "Hey, my manager got this certification. You know, being a manager is something that I want to do and I want to grow into." and they do a lot of the same work that we do and are privy to similar conversations and workflows. So, quite a few assistant managers that, of course, aren't part of the manager advisory council, we actually have an assistant manager advisory council. Many of them across campus who weren't a part of the class that we did roughly a year ago have started to get their CNML certifications.

And there is criteria that needs to be met to test for CNML. And at the time that we did the class, we had 60 individuals, but there was quite a few people that had they been a manager a month longer, two or three months longer. They would've met that threshold, and we might have maybe would've been able to do a couple more individuals for that class.

But seeing the volume of other leaders that took that class and have been working towards that, many of those leaders who have now met that threshold are now sitting to test as well, of course, on their own time because we did the class in bulk. But there's also leaders that have taken the CNML and passed who were not a part of that class.

And we set goals of course for the CNML exam itself, but our overarching goal, of course, was overall certifications. And, like I said earlier, a respiratory therapist supervisor or manager might not of course isn't going to take the nurse manager leader certification, but it's also empowered other departments within our council to pursue certification and be certified. Like Jen said, 16 to 55%, I mean, is absolutely incredible and something that we're really proud of and excited to continue to build upon.

Host: You should be proud of that number, 16 to 55. That is quite a big jump. So Blake, based on what you've learned from this experience, how are you thinking about future investments in nurse manager development and certification across the organization?

William Cabrera, MBA, MSN, RN, PCCN, CNML: We continue to partner with our shared governance overall on a weekly, if not daily basis. we continue to make ourselves available for other councils that exist, whether it's our assistant manager advisory council or other councils within our frontline teams, whether it be unit practice council, et cetera.

But continue to elaborate on, what I said a minute ago. We really want to continue to grow the amount of certified leaders that we have. And the goal is ultimately to be able to make it easy. That's one of our service standards. So, being able to do that with 60 people, that makes it pretty easy.

But really trying to hone in and seeing, okay, we were able to do this with these 60 leaders. What's the next step in identifying a large or moderate size group of people who might not be certified, whether that's within our, clinical manager advisory council or it is our assistant nurse managers. Maybe the next tier is, hey, we have a lot of engaged assistant managers and they meet this criteria for CNML or another certification that AONL may offer. And really engaging them and empowering them to be certified, because we do have internal incentives for them. If they're certified, we have a clinical ladder system that, encourages them to pursue these things. So, as far as next steps, I really think that's where we're heading.

Host: What a great discussion. I want to thank you both for your time today. So, it sounds like the broader takeaway message from listening to both of you is bringing leadership development in-house can remove barriers, I mean, create consistency, and really make professional certification certainly feel more achievable. Would that be right?

William Cabrera, MBA, MSN, RN, PCCN, CNML: A hundred percent. And the experience through and through has been absolutely amazing. The team, even if we've encountered minor barriers, has been incredibly responsive in removing those barriers and making it easy for us and the leaders that were a part of this initiative and class to be certified and grow.

Host: Well, Jennifer and Blake, thank you so much for sharing AdventHealth's experience in this and for giving us a look at how organizations can bring nurse manager development and certification preparation directly in-house like this and right to their leaders. Really important. So, I want to thank you both for your time today.

Once again, that was Jennifer Posada and Blake Cabrera. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you at aonl.org/nursing-leadership-podcast. This is Today in Nursing Leadership. Thanks for listening.