CMSA Today - Issue 4, 2021

my studies and achieved American Nursing Credentialing Certification (ANCC) as a nurse executive. For several years, I held the role of special project coordinator. This position offered a variety of learning and teaching opportuni ties. I learned how to develop early versions of electronic health records (EHRs), which encompassed order entry and charting. I was also exposed to a variety of jobs. I even had the opportunity to teach adult educa tion for the local school district, where I taught classes for health unit coordinators. The opportunity to move to case man agement became available, and I was ready for a change of pace. My hospital system needed a manager and leader for its case management department. The responsibili ties included budgeting and staffing across three hospitals in our system. In this new role, I realized I needed to learn more about case management (CM). I joined profes sional organizations and took every CM EDNA B. CLIFTON, MBA, BSN, RN When setting your career goals, it is help ful to engage a mentor. This is an individual who is a seasoned professional that holds values similar to yours. This person can pro vide guidance for certifications and educa tion you need to achieve your goals. They also can assist you in exploring available opportunities and financing. I was fortunate to be able to attend a bachelor’s in nursing (BSN) program right after high school. I had a cousin who was a nurse and served as my mentor. Her advice to me was take the time to get my bach elor’s early in my career as it would open opportunities in the future. I happily took her advice and completed my BSN. I started my nursing career in a large teaching hospital that offered educational tracks to train us for specialty areas. I opted for the critical care track, specific to medical and coronary critical care. These courses provided me with the training needed for me to function effectively in these areas early in my career. After two years working in these areas, I had the opportunity to begin teaching nurses to prepare them to work in the critical care areas. I also developed a

education course I could find. Since CM was a totally new role for me, I knew I had to develop my expertise and obtain creden tials to support that. I did take the ANCC RN-BC and the ACM exams to establish my role as a leader in CM. As a result of my certification work, I was instrumental in developing systemwide policies that offered rewards and benefits to certified staff in every department who earned their certifications. After several years as the director of case management, I had an opportunity to move to the corporate education office. The hos pital system needed someone to develop a CME certification process and to support the ANCC programs. With my background in education and case management, I was a prime candidate for this position. Here I learned how to develop programs on a learning management system platform and influence education programs across the health system. This also allowed me to use mentoring program that assisted new gradu ates to transition into the role of a profes sional nurse. Having the bachelor’s and the expertise gleaned from continued education courses opened opportunities to lecture at state and national seminars. After 5 years of teaching, I began to become frustrated because I was teaching the ideal to students, but the systems in which they worked needed to change, and the only way that could happen was for me to move into administration where I could influence those changes. At that time the bachelor’s was adequate to be eligible to take on an administrative position. However, it did not take long before that changed, and to maintain that role a master’s was required. I began to explore programs that would best prepare me to continue in administration, which was my professional goal. In choosing how to advance my career, I explored several master’s programs and evaluated how they could help me achieve my goal to broaden my business and finance experience to solidify my role as a nursing leader and an integral member of the execu tive team. I looked into master’s programs in nursing, business and public health. I began my studies in public health, but after taking several courses, I realized the curriculum did

my adult learning skills that I learned when I obtained my teaching credentials from the University of California. My advice is to take advantage of every education opportunity even if it does not directly apply to your current position. The things you learn qualify you for tomorrow’s job, or they may add a new idea for a better way to do today’s job. You never know.

Barbara Leach, MS, BSN, RN, is a registered nurse with a master’s degree in case management.

She currently is an independent CE/ CME consultant as well as director of curriculum management for Athena Forum Institute. Prior to that, Barbara worked for 45 years in many education and clinical positions for Sutter Health. Feel free to reach out to Barbara via email at barbara.leach@athenaforum.net . not offer the business and finance courses I felt I needed. So, I enrolled in a program to complete my master’s in business adminis tration. I do admit this transition was quite challenging. The course of study was very different and difficult, but I knew this pro gram clearly met my professional goals. When I finished my master’s in business administration (MBA), I chose to move into a different healthcare setting. I began work in the field of hospice. I was fortunate to meet their chief financial officer, who saw the value of having a nurse with a busi ness degree because of how the hospice Medicare benefit regulated payment for care their patients received. In this role as director of reimbursement, I had to dig into the Medicare regulations governing hospice payment and I had to educate insurance case managers to how hospice functioned and how it differed from home health. This role allowed me to apply my clinical and financial skills. The MBA program also had a strong qual ity improvement component. After gradua tion, I kept in touch with the professor who taught the course. Since he knew my interest in this topic, he referred me to the local school system’s Quality Academy. This was a Continued on page 18

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CMSA TODAY

Issue 4 • 2021