Rosanne Raso DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, is the Chief Nursing Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill-Cornell and Editor-in-Chief for Nursing Management for The Journal of Excellence in Nursing Leadership. Raso has been leading in this COVID-19 crisis and has learned some critical lessons from her vantage point along the way. These are some of her critical messages:
- Most important in crisis are grit and resilience – Decisions have to be made hour by hour, and they will change before the end of the day.
- Shared governance and democracy may have to be put to the side to go into a military, incident command structure.
- Self-care is essential – Do not forget staff (and your own) wellness – healthy snacks, hydration, psychosocial support, etc. (we deployed our child life staff to round with wellness carts).
- Leader visibility critical – Do not “work from home” while staff on the frontlines.
