Kimberly Long 0:00

Hello everyone. I am so honored to have Dr. Heather Ressiger here. She's the Senior Vice President, Chief Hospital Operations Officer, and Chief Nursing Officer for North Bay Health. Welcome, Heather.

Heather Resseger 0:14

Good morning. Thank you, Dr. Long.

Kimberly Long 0:16

It's so good to have you with us this morning. Real quickly, can you walk us through your journey to the executive level and any defining moments that shaped your trajectory?

Heather Resseger 0:28

Yeah, you know, I've been in healthcare for about 22 years now. I think early on, I was drawn to leadership. I didn't know that going into my nursing career, but I started in nursing leadership pretty quickly, probably within two years, I was already a lead or charge nurse. Did that for several years. I went, started my master's degree, and at the same time got my first role as a formal leader as a manager of acute care or of acute care unit. Finished my degree and held that role for about three years and then was promoted into a director of acute care services over seven different areas in the hospital setting, had wonderful opportunities and just be able to learn and grow. I was recruited and went as a director over the other part of the hospital, which was ED ICU Behavioral Health and Acute Care Services, to just learn and grow. And then strategically came back to California and really wanted to do something a little bit different than operations. And a director of quality came open and I thought, you know, there's an opportunity there for me to really grow and develop as a leader and not just be so nursing focused and really be able to see the health system from a different perspective and how to work with other colleagues in healthcare. And it really was the right move. It laid down the foundation and the groundwork to really make me think of things more from a system perspective rather than just a nursing perspective. And so I led that role and then took on case management as well and was promoted up to an assistive vice president over those areas. And then I was then promoted into the chief nursing officer position. Really uh thankful and humbled by that promotion, really being able to lead the charge for nursing and patient care services. But I don't think I would have been as great of a leader if I hadn't had that time in quality and really being able to see things from a different perspective. And then just through some reorganization, they asked me to take on the chief operations officer position along with the CNO position at North Bay to help round out. And as we were really building out our new team and our framework is changing again, which is great. But I've had the ability to really again think outside of the box and be able to lead in a different way to see operations across the board, you know, leading facilities and biomed and just those other areas. And so, how does that microsystem work as a whole? So that's really been my trajectory. And I was also thankful in the middle of that to be able to receive my doctorate in nursing practice in executive leadership, which I didn't necessarily do for my career, but I did for myself. It was just one of those things that I knew I would be a better leader if I kept investing in myself. And so that really has rounded out my leadership career.

Kimberly Long 3:18

Oh, I think that's wonderful. And you're a perfect example of how diversified the skill set is of nurse leaders. And I think that that's absolutely wonderful. Now, I'm gonna kind of venture off to a little bit of a different topic, but it's still in line with what we have already discussed. And, you know, we have the responsibility to provide alignment between academia and service, because academia is the beginning of the preparation of the people who are going to be working with us. From your perspective, what are some of the greatest opportunities to strengthen alignment between healthcare systems and academic institutions?

Heather Resseger 4:01

Oh, that's such a great question. Um, and I have so many thoughts and ideas around that. I think if you're practicing in a healthcare setting that is already adjoined with academia, some of those pathways are already laid. That foundation is there. We're, and I think there's always room for improvement. But I think that for community-based health systems, which is where I work currently, there's more opportunity. We need to do more with academia. Evidence-based practice, you hear that every day when you're in those academic settings, but we don't say it enough in the in that community-based healthcare system. And I don't think it's because we're not doing evidence-based practice, but it's not, it's just not the first thing we're thinking of, because we're thinking about how do I take care of that problem right now. And we really need to be better at how do we, how are we going to create solutions for the long term or in the future? And we need our academic partners to do that. I think that we have to start having more ability to bring in, you know, whether it's residents or it's uh nursing students or it's our technical students, we have to find a way to get more students into our health system so that they can get in that practice environment. And, you know, we need them in those rural areas. We need them in those settings where, you know, it's it's kind of uh harder to recruit to. And so if you don't partner with those academic settings now, it's gonna continue to be harder. But if you're a good academic partner and people are getting that experience within your system, they're gonna want to come and stay. So that helps us create that workforce strategy too. I think also just to embrace it and have our staff understand if I don't understand something or if I want something to change, how do I go look up that evidence and figure out how to do that? And I think that when you have a good partner in academia, they can come alongside you and help you raise your team up to be better in that framework as well. And so I think there's just a lot of opportunity to improve that. And I think we're all challenged, you know, preceptor burnout is really a true thing because we we just go through so many new students. But how do we train new people differently so we don't have burnout, but we can we can maximize more slots? So there's a lot of work that could be done between both the health system and academia to start creating some new solutions and and just thinking about it differently.

Kimberly Long 6:25

You're absolutely right. Absolutely. Now, part of what impacts, you know, academia and service side is legislation. And how can leaders more effectively influence legislative and regulatory decisions that are impacting nursing, healthcare delivery, and academia?

Heather Resseger 6:45

You know, that's an area that I actually have a lot of passion about that, and I'm even trying to figure out how do I step into that arena more. And I really got that bug during my doctoral program because we, you know, you take a lot of classes around that. But just watching the current healthcare legislative landscape, it's a calling that we all have to be active participants. And so I think you need to be sitting on boards where you can. I think you need to be writing or meeting with your legislative body of representatives, both locally, state, and federal, right? We've got policy that's local that's affecting us, we've got the state that's affecting us, and we've got federal, of course. And so, and you need, you know, you need to really become uh literate in healthcare policy and be able to speak to it, both from how does that policy affect us in the day-to-day and our patient population, but also be able to speak in a way that it meets those legislators where they are, so they know how to write bills that are more conducive to what this country needs for healthcare delivery. We have so many areas, and I don't think there's any area in the country that's not affected by people not being able to access care. Either it's they can't afford it, it's not local, whatever it may be, and then whatever else those issues may be. But so everybody has the ability to influence change, but you have to use your voice. I think collective is the other thing. Being part of an organization who has a strong voice already, really being part of that organization and making sure you're helping them to push initiatives that are important. A lot of times what I see is large health systems who have a, you know, a bigger footprint, have a louder voice, but their needs not are not necessarily what smaller health systems need. And so, you know, I work for a smaller health system. And so I had that conversation with a local politician and said, you know, make sure when you're you're thinking of these policies or laws that you're thinking about all of health systems, you know, not just big systems, but the small systems, the rural systems, the systems that if you they don't have funding, they're not going to be there tomorrow. And then, you know, that population's affected even more. So I do think you have to just get actively involved and understand what's coming down the pike and where to plug in. Also, what's your passion, right? Like where do you find passion in changing how healthcare is delivered and how those policies are affecting the way you want to deliver that care? Find that avenue and then concentrate on that and participate.

Kimberly Long 9:29

Oh, that is outstanding advice. I have one last question for you. And if you had to give your younger self career advice, what would that be and why?

Heather Resseger 9:40

You're stronger than you think, you're smarter than you know, you can make an impact bigger than you ever thought. You know, I come from a really small town in West Virginia. I went into nursing to take care of my kids. Never thought I was gonna go into like be a healthcare leader. I just wanted to like make sure that I didn't become a product of the system and that my kids saw how to come from, you know, poverty to the American dream, right? And so I think that I didn't know what I didn't know back then. And maybe that's okay. I don't know that I needed to tell myself anything because I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't go through the journeys that I went through. But I definitely think I would tell myself to believe in myself more and not to set limits on myself and and really just embrace every opportunity and make sure you pay it forward. Always throughout your whole career, make sure you pay it forward and no don't lose sight of that.

Kimberly Long 10:43

That is absolutely wonderful. Dr. Ressiger, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking your time to spend with us and provide your perspective and excellent recommendations and advice. So thank you so much.

Heather Resseger 10:58

Thank you, Dr. Long. I had a wonderful time today. I appreciate the opportunity.