Angel McGarrity-Davis, RN, CDONA, NHA

As a director of nursing, how often should I hold staff meetings with all of our nurses? What are MUST topics at these meetings?

This will depend on the size of the facility but let’s talk about generalities. The more you communicate and educate, the better your facility will be. 

I believe that it is very important to hold a monthly meeting on each shift. Please do not make night shift wake up in the middle of “their” night for your meeting. If you have weekend-only staff, you also should go in on the weekend. Each nurse manager should also do this for her/his unit, meeting again with all three shifts.  

The “MUSTs” of each meeting are preparing an agenda and starting and finishing the meeting on time. 

Other meeting topics can include:

• Coming up with specific, measurable, achievable goals with time-frames

• Sharing your vision and expectations 

• Collectively deciding  how to reach the goals and empower your staff. Show support, motivate, inspire and trust each other 

• Setting up subcommittees, such as psychotropics, infection control, etc., for line staff to join 

• Preparing for survey visits

• Finding opportunities for improvement in new regulations

• What is the Nursing Department working on in QAPI? 

• New and/or updated policy and procedures; new equipment

• Grievances 

• Customer Service

• Community needs that your nursing team could address 

Each month ask a nurse to help present an education session to the group. Discuss openly the opportunities that your team is finding difficult, and find ways to collaborate in these areas.