WHOLENESS from the Inside Out
Message from AdventHealth’s President & CEO
As our industry continues to navigate challenges within a shifting environment, one thing has become clear: people are seeking wholeness more than ever before. They need care for their bodies, minds and spirits. This wholistic approach to health care is part of our legacy and is at the core of who we are as an organization.
Our team members are no exception to needing this care. As workforce expectations and priorities have shifted significantly — with a renewed focus on family, personal wellness and flexibility — we recognize that our team needs to feel whole first in order to provide whole-person care to the patients and communities they serve.
This realization has enabled us to let go of traditional approaches, and has ignited a period of experimentation – testing new initiatives, failing fast and continuously refining and improving within a changing environment. Traditional approaches to recruitment, engagement and retention in health care simply aren’t as effective as they were.
We’ve been on a journey to listen to our team members and have been challenged to make significant investments in the very things they said would help them feel whole at work:
• A pledge to current and future team members to care for them in body, mind and spirit — their whole selves beyond the walls of where they work;
• Enhanced leadership and professional development benefits for our clinical teams and emerging leaders;
• New team-based and virtual nursing models to alleviate work intensity;
• Debt-free education assistance for team members who can’t afford to pay out-of-pocket;
• New offerings in mental health, financial management and physical wellness.
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the tension that comes with these greater investments. Our commitment to our team members means that we are being held to a higher degree of accountability. But we are convinced that this is work we must do if we as an organization are going to meet the most critical needs of the people we serve today.
We have a long way to go. We keep testing, failing and refining. We continue our journey to listen to our team members and to industry peers on what is working and what isn’t. Collectively, as we navigate our challenges together, we will be better positioned as an industry to rise up to meet them.
Terry D. Shaw,
AdventHealth President & CEO