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Seven metro Atlanta health care organizations were named among The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Top Workplaces for 2013.
Resurgens Orthopaedics (8), Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (10), Northeast Georgia Health System (16) and Quest Diagnostics Inc. (19) were ranked among the top 20 large (at least 500 employees) workplaces.
Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southeastern Regional Medical Center was ranked second among the top midsize (150 to 499 employees) workplaces.
Cobb Pediatric Therapy Services (24) and athenahealth (27) were ranked among metro Atlanta's top small (149 or fewer employees) workplaces.
More than 1,200 companies were nominated or asked to participate in the 2013 contest by The AJC and its partner, Workplace Dynamics, after employees across the metro area responded to print and online solicitations. Workplace Dynamics then surveyed 183 companies that agreed to participate.
More than 49,000 metro Atlanta workers participated in the survey. They were asked to respond to a set of statements using a seven-point Likert scale. Each statement was tested to ensure a high correlation with how employees rate their workplaces.
New CNO: Veronica Martin, RN, MSN, NEA-BC, has been named chief nursing officer at WellStar Cobb Hospital.
Martin will be responsible for leading the nursing division, establishing strategic direction for patient care services and implementing contemporary models of care.
Prior to joining WellStar, Martin was associate chief nursing officer at Tampa General Hospital. She helped lead the clinical implementation of the hospital’s electronic medical records system, a system WellStar is currently implementing.
Grant co-directors: Lisa Eichelberger, dean of Clayton State University's College of Health, and Aimee Manion, of the Atlanta VA Medical Center, were named co-directors for Georgia's new "Future of Nursing State Implementation Program" grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The $225,000 grant was awarded to the Georgia Nursing Leadership Coalition in March. Georgia is one of 20 states to be awarded in the initiative.
With this two-year grant, the Georgia Nursing Leadership Coalition, which includes more than 300 health care leaders from 70 cities across Georgia, plans to focus on doubling the number of nurses with doctorate degrees by 2020 and building an infrastructure to collect and analyze nursing work force data.
Faculty members honored: Two Clayton State University nursing faculty members earned awards at the recent Georgia Association of Nurse Educators conference.
Debra Cody, an assistant professor of nursing, won the Jane Van de Verde Nurse Educator Award for 2013, which includes a check for $500. Cody, a nurse educator for more than 35 years, was cited for demonstrating a positive influence on nursing education in Georgia through scholarship, serving on state committees related to nursing education, and developing a mentor program for new nursing faculty members.
Nancy Capponi, a clinical faculty member, and two other doctoral students won best poster presentation for doctoral students for “The Use of Beck’s Anxiety Index with Undergraduate Nursing Students.”
Continuing education fund: Nurses and other clinical practitioners at Piedmont Fayette Hospital will soon have access to financial support for continuing education, thanks to a generous donation to create the Piedmont Fayette Clinical Education Fund.
Dr. Fred Willms , chief medical officer at Piedmont Fayette, made the donation to start the fund to enhance the education of clinical employees — namely bedside nurses — who serve patients.
The Piedmont Fayette Clinical Education Fund will be available to nurses and other clinical practitioners for certification classes, online programs, conference attendance, speaker fees and logistics, mentoring expenses, and equipment purchase if the expense is designed to support clinicians.
For more information about the fund or to contribute, go to donate.piedmont.org.
New DNP programs: The Georgia Regents University College of Nursing in Augusta has launched two new doctor of nursing practice degree programs to prepare family and pediatric nurse practitioners.
The programs, which will begin in the fall, make GRU one of the first nursing schools in Georgia to offer doctoral degrees in those fields.
The programs will accept students with bachelor’s or master’s of science degrees in nursing. Students who have a bachelor’s degree can complete the program in three years with full-time study and can work part time during their first year to gain clinical experience. Other students have tailored programs of study.
The new DNP doctoral programs will educate nurse practitioners in evidence-based practice, requiring them to consider whether certain types of care lead to the best patient outcomes.
Good for hourly workers: Working Mother magazine named WellStar Health System one of the Best Companies for Hourly Workers for 2013.
Only 12 companies in the country were named to this list, which distinguishes employers that have the best policies and programs for promoting women and a dynamic work/life culture.
Hourly workers make up 81 percent of WellStar’s work force, and nearly 70 percent of those participate in WellStar’s medical plan. More than half of WellStar’s hourly female team members opt for coverage under WellStar’s medical plan.
Women in full-time service jobs are often completely uninsured, with 35 percent of restaurant workers, 36 percent of cashiers and 26 percent of retail sales assistants lacking insurance versus only 16 percent of all U.S. women, according to an analysis of 2010 Census Bureau data by the National Women’s Law Center.
