Nursing’s Next Evolution: Patti Artley on Reshaping Healthcare Staffing | Healthcare Series

Intro: Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Kodespode and today’s guest is Patty Artley, Chief Nursing Officer of Medical Solutions. They are one of the nation’s largest healthcare staffing firms. Since their founding in 2001, they have connected nurses and allied health clinicians with hospitals and healthcare systems across the country.

They have grown thoughtfully and organically by diversifying their service offerings and bringing like-minded companies into the fold. Patty herself brings 35 years of nursing and clinical staffing experience, having previously served as Chief Nursing Officer at the Medical University of South Carolina. She is passionate about nurturing safe, efficient healthcare environments and has championed several quality and safety initiatives in her leadership roles. Through her strong leadership, she has guided teams to deliver exceptional care, driving success in complex healthcare settings. Her dedication to team collaboration and patient advocacy has shaped her approach to improving healthcare systems. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the Chief Nursing Officer of Medical Solutions, Patty Artley. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Patti Artley: Thank you for having me. I appreciate being here.

Anthony Codispoti: So, Patty, what first drew you into the healthcare field all those years ago?

Patti Artley: Oh, well, as you heard, it was a long time ago. I actually wanted to be a teacher. I come from an education, parents education background and wanted to be a teacher. And my skillset was more suited for both math and science. So I decided to be a nurse. That’s actually how I became a nurse. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti: And did you initially have a vision of getting to the stage of what you’re doing now or that kind of happened more organically or even accidentally along the way?

Patti Artley: Definitely accidentally. I never ever thought I would be doing this. I never thought I’d be a chief nurse. When I pursued my master’s degree, I actually pursued it as a clinical nurse specialist.

It wasn’t even in leadership. Love being at the bedside. Love taking care of pediatric patients. And so that’s where I thought I’d be. It wasn’t until individuals tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to lead different projects or different units that I fell in love with leadership.

Anthony Codispoti: So you started out as a pediatric nurse? I did. And what did you really, what was it about that that you really enjoyed?

Patti Artley: Everything. I love taking care of kids. That was the best part of it because it really married my love for children, which was wanting to be a teacher. And really taking care of them. They’re so resilient and they bounce back. And I think the most challenging part is sometimes taking care of the families when they’re at their worst.

So that was probably the most challenging part. And when I say kids are resilient, they bounce back from things faster than any adult. When I look at the pediatric oncology population, which is one of the groups I’m in, Edgdant to care of, they were just the room, they were remarkable. Things that we did to them, I will say that, you know, different procedures, different things. And the only thing they look forward to is getting something out of the treasure chest. So, you know, and then a hug afterwards. So it was very, very different than taking care of adult patients.

Anthony Codispoti: I’m curious. Obviously, you know, it’s really rewarding when you have positive outcomes, but when you’re in the medical field, that’s not always the case. How could you compartmentalize or, I don’t know, sort of balance that without it having sort of take you over?

Patti Artley: So I always told everyone I ever oriented or anyone I ever worked with, if you ever get used to those bad events, then it’s time to leave the profession or at least leave that area. So working in an ICU, when we would have codes or even when you were on a floor and you had a bad event, you cried. You did go through the motions while you had to go through the motions.

They’re very calculated and you do what you have to do. But afterwards, you have to take care of yourself and you have to decompress. And there were times as a group, we would often just get together as a group after a bad event or a serious event and you would decompress together.

So, you know, we’re all in it together. And after I had my own children, I have to say that that was a little bit more difficult. There were times that I’d have a child that looked like my child or that we had a similar event and I thought that could have been my child and really hung on to that for a little bit. But it’s really how you create a network that helps you decompress, helps you take care of each other. And I was fortunate enough to grow up in that kind of environment at Penn State Health and they helped nurture and develop you.

Anthony Codispoti: At Penn State Health. So you’re a Nittany lion, is that right?

Patti Artley: I am a Nittany lion. I graduated from their undergrad and grad school and I am a huge football fan.

Anthony Codispoti: Oh, so we’re recording this on January 3, 2025. The first ever expanded college football playoff format. We’re going to go on just a quick tangent here because I can see beaming from ear to ear. Penn State has found themselves, has earned the right to be in the semifinals where their upcoming game is.

Patti Artley: Go ahead. It’s the 9th of January and we will be playing in Miami against Notre Dame now. Right.

Anthony Codispoti: And if things play out well and Notre Dame wins their next game and my alma mater wins their next game, we could have an all big 10 final. Ohio State versus Penn State would be fun to see a rematch. Yes.

Patti Artley: Ohio State had quite the game with Oregon.

Anthony Codispoti: We did. We did. So we’re optimistic and enjoying what’s unfolded so far. So, all right, so back to being a pediatric nurse. I’m curious when you went through those difficult and challenging times, when you were on staff, was there like a formal behavioral support network or was it more informal where you just kind of got together with coworkers and sort of cried together and leaned on each other?

Patti Artley: Well, it was informal when it first started. I can honestly say that we had a great pediatric ICU. So I also was a maternal child for seven years and I absolutely loved being a maternal child. I was able to float in and out of different units and in the pediatric ICU, they actually had a formal developed program where they would get together. Following the immediate debriefing. And so everybody that was on staff, if a code took place or something just happened, we could call the team together to actually help support them. So it was more regimented than any place else in the hospital that I worked.

Anthony Codispoti: And for those that are watching the video version of the podcast, you’ll see that Kristen Dahl just joined us. She’s the PR specialist there at Medical Solutions. So welcome, Kristen. Happy to have you here. I’m curious to hear Patty, before you tell me about how the opportunity at Medical Solutions unfolded, paint a little bit of a picture for us, the breadth of the service offerings that are available there.

Patti Artley: So Medical Solutions, as you heard earlier, started in 2001 and it really was organically formed as a temporary staffing agency. And that’s really the focus that it had and then acquired a couple of different companies that also helped support and broaden the breadth of what they were able to offer, what services they were able to offer. And then more recently, started diversifying in the last three years, really acquiring international companies, working on direct hire, really working on how we support our clients a little bit differently with some technology and with services that are not just related to travel. You know, during COVID, there were a lot of travel companies that started and really expanded because that was the demand of the time. And I don’t think, even being in the hospital, I don’t think that we could have ever survived COVID without travel. And the reason I say that is because if you remember how COVID, I’ll say popped, it popped in different areas of the country. And it moved rather quickly and it really started to respond in different areas.

We’d see, you know, the epicenter and then we’d see a lot of different pockets that formed. And we really didn’t have the capability of moving staff or moving registered nurses other than travel in a way that could really stay ahead of that. And really be able to localize teams or be able to move nurses in that way. And that was hard, you know, as a nurse at a bedside, where I was the, I was the CNO of a hospital and health system. It was very difficult to watch a lot of our nurses leave and move. So I was hard pressed to say that I loved that because I was in the midst of really struggling to keep our staff on board.

But it was hard when the, when the South rays were what they were during that time. That’s, that’s really what made the move of really expansion in the travel industry. But as we were coming out of the travel, you know, really starting to shrink the demand of travel. That’s where medical solutions started the diversification as, as have other companies.

Anthony Codispoti: So started out as a temporary staffing agency, then because of the realities of COVID and how, you know, their operates would pop in different parts of the country. You’re kind of forced into evolving the model because travel specialists, travel nursing professionals were in demand in different parts of the country at different times.

So you guys had to go there. Now as COVID kind of, you know, started to wane that need for travel nurses has cut back as well. And so now the new evolution of medical solutions looks like what?

Patti Artley: Well, the new evolution is more of a full workforce solution. So we’ve listened to our partners and really helped where they have needs, whether it’s internal resource pool and helping them develop that more technology to help with that flexible scheduling and they and the gig kind of workforce that are that our teams are really requiring and then direct hire really helping the organizations hire from a lot of different areas that that their human resources or talent acquisitions can’t reach. And then last but not least are our international program. So we have a company that really offers a direct hire international which is worldwide health and that has been very successful in helping organizations recruit season nurses, because after we saw the evolution of COVID, there were a lot of new nurses joining the workforce, and a lot of our seasoned staff have left. So that international hiring international nurses has been very, very successful.

Anthony Codispoti: And is when you say international, are you hiring nurses from the states and placing them in other countries or you’re helping to hire people local to those geographies and place them locally. Correct.

Patti Artley: So hiring from the Philippines from Saudi Arabia from England from Canada and placing them in the United States.

Anthony Codispoti: I see to help fill in shortages that are here looking for highly trained professionals outside the country and bringing them in. And when when you do that is that direct hire are they still employees of medical solutions so it’s more like a temporary or contract worker kind of an arrangement.

Patti Artley: No, it’s direct hire. So we we work with the hospital that is contracting us to look for those individuals for them so registered nurses medical technologists so there’s a breadth of roles that they are looking for. And then we help source them we find them and bring them over they interview them and they make offers and they become once they join their team they become their employee.

Anthony Codispoti: Is there still the sort of the core of the business model in the temporary the contract workers that is part of medical solutions.

Patti Artley: Oh yes that’s our that’s our biggest book of business that we still do. These are all other things that we’ve evolved other services that we’ve evolved towards.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah other things that you can layer in as you’re getting feedback from your clients on what they need. And one of the things that I heard you say was that you moved into the tech space is this like medical tech is this more like software tech like they need inside the hospitals with explain that for us.

Patti Artley: Sure so more software technology. So we leverage what we call match well and it’s a company that we purchased about two and a half years ago and and they they can help an organization create their own internal resource pool, hire locally and and manage that local market with us.

Anthony Codispoti: And these acquisitions this has been kind of a key part of medical solution strategy over the past several years right. Can you say more about that.

Patti Artley: Yeah so for the during COVID as as we talked about travel was our was our key driver and coming out of COVID in 2022 2023 the CEO at the time really recognized that his client the clients that we served really needed something more than travel and they needed other options to make their their staffing models whole and that was for a variety of reasons. Some of which we just went over the fact that a lot of new nurses left the organizations and and we’re scarce in really seasoned nurses and that’s really one of the levers for pulling in the international reason. The reason that they went to the gig workforce and really Matt purchased a match well was because they wanted more flexibility they heard from their partners that they wanted more flexibility. They needed a mechanism in which to manage that staff differently. So that’s really the impetus because they truly do listen to the the the individuals at this year that they serve in what are their key strategies and what are they looking for and that’s how we’re evolving.

Anthony Codispoti: Well it’s a very smart strategy you want to know what to sell listen to the people who are buying listen to your customers they’ll tell you. So now that we’ve got a little bit of a better idea what medical solutions does tell us how the opportunity for you to join the organization came about.

Patti Artley: Well that was a little by accident actually I wasn’t planning on leaving I loved what I was doing I love the fact that we were moving towards filling our vacancies we were evolving as an organization and I and I really did appreciate where I worked. And by accident I I actually answered recruiter’s phone call. That’s the honest truth and that recruiter had tried to contact me a couple times via email and LinkedIn and I really during COVID CNOs were recruited on a regular basis. I was getting 10 to 12 calls a week during 2022 into 2023 so I ignored most of them.

But I picked this one up and shared with her that I would talk to her in a week and a half if she wanted to send me the information gave her a date and time and she did it so she called me and just asked me to speak to the CEO and the chief operating officer. And so I did that and I appreciated them both and appreciated what they were sharing with me. They answered the questions the way they’d aligned to what my views were and what I was thinking and allow me to be innovative.

They really wanted to hire a chief nurse to be able to relate to the chief nurses that they served and how we could design programs and solutions together to help them.

Anthony Codispoti: So I’m sorry go ahead.

Patti Artley: So that just helped me make my decision.

Anthony Codispoti: I’ve got a few follow up questions. First of all let’s take a step back though and most people have heard of a CEO, a COO, CFO. What does a chief nursing officer do? Paint that picture for us if you will.

Patti Artley: Sure. So in a hospital as a chief nurse you’re responsible for patient satisfaction, employee engagement, quality and safety. You’re responsible to really drive the employee engagement because nursing is by far their largest workforce. And so those were all key strategies, key parts in performance and really managing the staff, making sure the right people were competent to take care of the patients that they were serving.

And so now the chief nurse in medical solutions. I’m really the liaison and really helping strategize so I spend a lot of time and strategy with my partners that I serve. And we have what we call MSPs and those MSPs are our partnerships that are exclusive to working with us. So when we have a partner that I work with them quarterly and we share their business strategy where they’re at, how they are leveraging our services. And then we talk about what are their strategies and how do we better serve them. And so it’s really creating those kind of strategies with them that we can help complement.

Anthony Codispoti: And so MSP, this is managed service provider and this is basically like a preferred contract, a preferred arrangement so that you’re a preferred vendor with them.

Patti Artley: It is. That’s exactly what it is.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay, so you were being pursued multiple times per week during COVID to be a chief nursing officer somewhere else. I kept saying no, I’m busy, I’m happy where I am. But accidentally you end up on a call with the CEO and COO of medical solutions. What was it that they said to you that like, you know, was such a big deal that had you changing your mind on all that?

Patti Artley: Well, I love the fact that they said they wanted to hire a chief nurse. They seem to know how to use a chief nurse, right? So they first had really decided that that was a role that they were extremely interested in. I was going to be the first one in their organization. And they wanted me to partner with other organizations to be innovative, to strategize. And I love those parts of my role. I didn’t get to practice as much in those roles during COVID because you were really just putting out fires and responding to, you know, crisis all the time. So that really allowed me to, I think, leverage a lot of my strengths and the things that I love to do.

So that’s probably the biggest thing. And both of them were in sync. So they both independently, two different interviews said the same thing. So that also resonated with me where they were looking, they knew exactly what they were looking for. They were in lockstep and I felt like they would really give me the liberties to help evolve the role.

Anthony Codispoti: You made the point a couple of times that they allowed you to be innovative. What are some of the innovative things that you’ve been able to introduce there, Patty?

Patti Artley: Well, one of the things that we have done is the internal float pool kind of concept, that resource pool and helping our partners really understand how do they leverage creating their own pool of individuals where they can move them.

You know, health systems have really started to merge and acquisitions have been at an all time high in the last several years. And so with multiple sites, how do they help create their own flexibility so that they can move individuals? Almost all hospitals have had float pools for years and they’re within the boundaries of their building, right? So they operate within their building to create that flexible moving of staff to where the need is. So this really takes up a step further and really building an infrastructure where you can move staff from one hospital to the other, all within the same health system that allow them to be a lot more flexible and nimble in providing care and in a more economical way than doing it with travel. We have created a lot of opportunities for our nurses to think differently in whether it’s creating succession planning for their organization and how they leverage different potential clinical ladders or career ladders that they have. So some use it in nursing and others use it in their laboratories or their radiology departments, but really building an infrastructure to invest in a person and saying, here’s how you can build your career here in our organization. So those are a few of the things that we’ve done with our partners. The other thing that we’ve worked with them on is how they create a process for really creating when you have a good travel clinician that you’re really interested in keeping. How do you create an infrastructure to be successful in doing that? And a lot of places say, why do you do that? Because that’s really moving individuals into a core role, but it’s really when you want to service your team and your team includes your partners, that really is what we’ve evolved towards.

Anthony Codispoti: A couple of follow-ups there for you, Patty. So the internal float pool idea is this utilizing the employees of your partners, we’ll call it the hospitals that you place folks at. Is it utilizing the staff that you’re placing there or a combination of the two?

Patti Artley: It’s usually a combination of the two. We usually start them up running with our own team and then we build the infrastructure for them and then they staff it. So it’s an evolution of it. Sometimes it’s our staff. It evolves towards being more of their individual staff that are moving between their hospitals. And then oftentimes when they need travelers, they’ll put them in the float pool just to create that largest opportunity to move them where they need them the most.

Anthony Codispoti: What you’re describing sounds very customer-centric, right? This is what the customer needs. This is benefiting them. But it’s probably taking away, if I’m looking at this objectively, it’s probably taking away from your own bottom line, right? If they were less efficient with their labor pool, they probably need to hire more of your temporaries to come in. Am I thinking about that in the right way?

Patti Artley: It’s true, but in all honesty, if you’re going to be a full-service provider and you really want to be a partner, which is what I really do appreciate about medical solutions, is that that’s part of the partnership, is that it’s a give-and-take. It’s about what you need to do to make your team successful. The other thing that if it’s not us, it’s going to be somebody else, right? Because honestly, travel alone is not sustainable for organizations to rely on travel the way they did in the past. So if it’s not us, then it’s going to be somebody else that will help them.

Anthony Codispoti: And this goes into what you were just saying about creating an infrastructure to help your customers be able to keep a traveling nurse provider that they really like. Again, that is taking away from your bottom line, but you guys are taking a much more holistic approach and saying, hey, what’s best for the customer? And if we can figure out what’s best for them, things are just going to take care of us naturally. Correct.

Yeah. And I really love this theme, and I’ve heard this from a number of my guests, where for some of them, it kind of comes in a light bulb moment where they were like, you know, whether it was for the business or for themselves individually, they were really focused, me, me, me, me, me, like, how do I get more, more, more, more, more. And when they eventually switched to how can I give more?

How can I deliver more value to the people that I’m interacting with? Like the opportunity started to flow. The, you know, the bottom line improved on its own. Like it just everybody was more in sync. Is that kind of how you and medical solutions think about things?

Patti Artley: Without a doubt. And that’s, that’s when, when you think about what I would say differentiates us, that is the way that we think is really around how do we provide the best value and value isn’t just about the cost, it’s about quality. And how do we do it together?

Anthony Codispoti: Patty, tell me what the voices of care survey is. Sure.

Patti Artley: So we designed the voices of care survey a couple of years ago, really trying to identify what do clinicians think about? What do they care about? What’s important to them? So we surveyed many different nurses, whether they were travel clinicians, they were core to organizations, we just sent out a survey.

We have more than 7000 responses to these clinicians who responded and shared with us what’s really important to them. And, and that’s part of the, the other piece. It’s not just about what does the client partner want, but how do we serve us the clinician in a way that, that makes or understand the role of the clinician in a way that models and makes our decisions easier, right? So that we’re, so that we’re doing what matters. You as a leader, I think, and I’ve learned this over the many years as you articulated nursing.

Anthony Codispoti: There’s a lot of wisdom in those years, Patty. That’s the only point I wanted to make there.

Patti Artley: There is. But what I, what I have really, truly learned in my leadership opportunities is that we can work on a lot of different things. There’s never, you know, you’re never done as a leader, you are constantly working on things.

But if you’re not working on the right things, then you really miss in the mark. And so that’s the reason that as, as a leader, I have always found it very important to understand what’s most important, because what most might be most important in one of our rural settings is very different than maybe a large urban or an academic medical center. And so really understanding what’s important to them helps shape our strategic plan and helps us determine what’s next and what are we working on and what do we want to work on in the next one, two, three years.

Anthony Codispoti: Can you share maybe just a couple of the key insights that you’ve picked up from doing the survey? Sure.

Patti Artley: So clinicians have really shifted their mindset on work-life balance. I think that’s one of the really big things that has come out in the last several years. And, you know, I think they figured out that it’s not just all about your work and it’s not just all about your work doesn’t define you. When I think about, you know, I’m a Gen Xer and I’m on that cusp and it was my work to find me and what I did, you know, how I, how I served as a member of the team really mattered. And I’m not saying that that has shifted, but, you know, how much, how many hours I’m willing to work and how much overtime I’m willing to give you does, does make a difference. And so we have to really think and reimagine how we staff and how we, you know, expect that it used to be when I was a leader at the bedside. I really depended on people to do overtime a lot more than they do now.

And I think that’s the right thing to do. Really thinking through, you know, I need to provide the number of nurses that I need to staff a unit. And instead of thinking about it in a 75, 25 contingent kind of model, 75% core and 25 contingent, it might be now more 85 or 90 core and in a little bit less contingent. Just because I think that’s what they’re expecting. They’re expecting us to plan differently and, and utilize resources in a different way.

So that’s the first thing. The second thing is flexibility. They want to have flexibility in their schedules.

They, they are not going to work full time nights forever and if it works for their schedules, but you have to offer a blend and a man. And that’s really important. And that was not something that we heard consistently before. Pay has always been a big thing.

And pay will continue to be a big thing for healthcare workers. And I always say I have three children of my own and they’re all independent and out working in the workforce. And they all say they’re not paid enough either. So I don’t know that it’s just nursing. But I do believe that that is consistent and will stay consistent in the near future.

Anthony Codispoti: So, you know, this idea of work-life balance becoming a lot more important, people not wanting to be available for quite as much over time. Logic would tell me that this is probably, at least in part, contributing to some of the staffing shortages. Am I right?

Patti Artley: It is. It is. And it really challenges us to think differently about how we create staffing models and what’s important to make sure that we’re supporting them in a very different way.

Anthony Codispoti: It seems like this Voices of Care survey would almost be like a competitive advantage for you. Right? You’ve got such a large organization. It’s grown both organically as well as with acquisitions. So you have a lot more data points from which to collect the data. And, you know, the more data points you have, like the better picture you can sort of paint for yourself on, where are we? Where do we need to be? Do you think about it in that same way? Because you’re such a large organization that this is just giving you even greater insights into how to better serve your workforce.

Patti Artley: Yes. Well, that’s one of the reasons why we do it, right? Is so that we can gain that insight. But we also share it. I shared in multiple different forums.

Anthony Codispoti: So this isn’t just private data for you.

Patti Artley: We have done both. We’ve shared it in podcasts. We’ve actually produced some of the data that we use in different topics that we speak to. We leverage that data as well towards that. Because I think it’s really important as an industry. You know, at the end of the day, we have to figure out how do we help cultivate and really grow the profession of nursing as well?

And it’s not it’s not going to happen just because Medical Solutions has this information. But how do we help across the industry work with the data that we know and what information we have so that we can can pull the right levers?

Anthony Codispoti: Patty, as the Chief Nursing Officer, I’m curious, how do you ensure whether it’s travel nurses, allied professionals, contract workers that you’re placing remain just as supported and engaged as permanent staff despite being on the move?

Patti Artley: Yeah, so we’ve put several things in place in the last several years. So we started a traveler rest up and I love data. So let me let me say that I love to take data and use it to help create new programs. So we looked at our data that was saying we were. We were we had two and a half assignments where what was typically happening in our organization.

So an individual who set out to travel was typically traveling with us for two and a half assignments. And then they were finding their own way or whatever. But we started then dissecting why are they leaving and said, you know what, I think we could support them differently. So my clinical team, that is a group of registered nurses that helps with interviews and make sure that we have competent in clinically sound nurses on assignment, actually started a program where we help support the traveler on their first assignment. So during their first assignment, making sure that we have their questions answered, that we put an infrastructure in place to support them with recruiters question and answer, season travelers. We’ve been bringing season travelers in and kind of give them the tool of the trade.

Right. Here’s here’s what we’ve learned. Here’s best practices so that it helps avoid pitfalls and it really helps position them well for their travel assignments.

So we do that. I have a clinical that same clinical team also has an opportunity to really coach and develop if somebody’s on an assignment and they’re struggling, whether it’s clinically, professionally, behaviorally, we get involved rather quickly and start that coaching. And how do we help mentor them? And then we do follow ups afterwards to make sure they’re on the right track and that they feel supported.

And if if they identify a gap and there have been times where I’ve then gotten involved and work with the the leadership in that hospital. And how do we help support that team differently? And I think about one of our groups that the one of the partners that we’ve worked with and we’ve put about five or six different things in place that really help support them in a very different way from individuals meeting with travelers, the moment that they get on on assignments. So they work with them every month to meet with them and make sure that their needs are met, making sure that they know where their policies and procedures are.

It’s just that extra step in going that extra mile. We also share with our with our partners what the post survey is. So we survey clinicians when they leave their assignment. So after they finish their assignment, they get a survey to tell us about the hospitals. So as part of our quarterly business reviews, we do share with our teams what what the clinicians say about them.

And that’s the positives and maybe some of the constructive feedback that they can learn from. So that helps us really create an environment together because I see the traveler like a secret shopper, right? They’re in your organization and they can tell you where your warts are. They can tell you exactly where you need to work.

And and I’ll tell you that every one of the CNOs that I work with really appreciate that feedback because it’s an opportunity for them. Many times they already know it. It’s rare when it’s a surprise. They know that they have a problem there, but they just haven’t addressed it maybe or, you know, they’re coaching them or they’re working on that on that area. But for the most part, it’s not a huge surprise.

Anthony Codispoti: It’s interesting because it seems logical to me that, you know, having one of your travel nurses sort of, you know, surface an issue at a place that they’ve just recently arrived could create some internal tensions there. But you’re saying and I’m sure that there’s some of that that goes on, right? But you’re saying by and large, the the CNOs that you’re working with at your client’s sites, they’re they’re actually happy to have somebody raise it.

They probably already knew about it, but maybe this is just giving them the excuse or the reminder to to do something about it, to sort of surface it to the top. Correct.

Patti Artley: And, you know, so I would say to your first question or to your first point about sometimes it creates that tension. So it’s it’s how you say what you say, right? And I think that’s one of the things that we do when we coach. If if somebody’s brought up, you know, this person just brings up all the negatives in this organization or is coming across as negative. That’s part of the coaching that can take place is you may identify a problem, right? And it’s how you bring up that problem that makes or breaks the acceptance of what you’re saying.

And so as part of the coaching opportunities, it’s really about how do we frame this in a way that’s going to get you the attention that you need? And how do we help them bring it up so it’s constructive? And and I’ll be honest with you when it’s reframed, it’s not viewed as well, here’s Patty Art Lake coming and bringing up all these problems and, you know, and just looking as being negative. It’s really about how does she want to make this a better organization? And how when she’s seen it in three different other organizations work in a different way, maybe bringing up, have you ever tried or I can I can share that in another organization, this is what they’ve done. And and it’s that ability to be able to give that feedback in a way where it’s going to be received and and reacted to or responded to.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, this is such a great reminder, even for me, Patty, and probably for a lot of the listeners as well. You know, what’s the old saying? You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

And so the way that it’s presented makes a huge difference. You know, you OK, so you’ve got this problem. Do you come in and you just complain and, you know, throw it on the floor and this is terrible and you guys are awful people or do you reframe it as, hey, we’ve noticed a challenge here, right? We’ve had some other clients who ran into something similar and we thought we might, you know, propose some solutions if you guys are open to it, right? It’s a completely different conversation. You bring a totally different energy to it and you’re much more likely to to get some forward motion on it.

Patti Artley: Yes, yes. And when we know there’s an issue or a situation, what I will often do in the in the quarterly business review is share it as best practice. So we we want to share best practices. You know, here are the the the things that we’re seeing out there with many of our partners.

We’re wondering if any one of these is of interest to you in a way that we can come and help, right? So so it really is when you’re in a true partnership, you look at it like they’re here to help instead of they just aren’t. They’re just here with the service and it’s a vendor kind of relationship. And that’s what we do not want to create is just that vendor kind of relationship. It’s that partnership.

Anthony Codispoti: Well, which is something we just talked about a few minutes ago, right? You guys have taken it from, you know, hey, what’s best for us in our bottom line to how can we best serve our customers? And so this all kind of feeds into itself, right? So that when you come to them with an issue or a challenge, they don’t view you as strictly transactional because you’ve made it clear to them that you don’t view them strictly as transactional. And so they’re more receptive to that conversation, right?

Correct. So, you know, one of the things that we heard a lot about during and coming out of COVID, particularly in the health care field was burnout, right? People were being asked to do a lot in a really scary time.

People were stretched really thin. What does what does all of this look like now as we’re recording this at the beginning of 2025? How would you sort of taking the temperature of the health care field in general? Where would you say people are?

Patti Artley: Yeah, I think it’s a lot better than what we were talking about in 2022, 2023. You know, there are a lot of tools out there to assess burnout. And some of our partners have used them.

Some of our partners have not. You know, I think what’s most important about burnout is that it doesn’t look the same. It doesn’t look the same for individual individuals, and it certainly doesn’t look the same in units and organizations as it does in other units and organizations.

So I learned that rather quickly through COVID, we did a burnout survey for our own team at MUSC where I worked in different units. We’re struggling with different things. So the ICUs that we’re seeing a lot of death and dying, we’re really having a lot of moral distress. The moral distress on a med surge unit was more related to the fact that they couldn’t meet, you know, with higher ratios, they couldn’t meet the necessary needs of their patients. You know, they might not have gotten a bath every day or they might not have gotten, you know, to do the things that they think made and what all of us as nurses think makes the whole package, right?

So it’s not just about dealing with the task at hand, but how do you care for the whole person? And so what was what they were struggling with was very different. So you didn’t have a one stop shop for, you know, how you addressed it. That’s what made it very difficult. It was very customized and individualized.

And you had to throw a lot of resources at it to make it meaningful. Now I would say that the focus is really on the well being of our of our organizations and a lot more focus on that coming out of COVID. And that is really not just the physical, but their mental and their emotional and their financial, which I think is really important. And that’s what organizations are doing across the industry and across all of our health care.

Settings that are being very successful and addressing them. I think the other thing and it goes back to what nurses say, they want to know that you’re invested in them, right? And so a lot of organizations are going that next step to really help them develop a plan on how they help grow them, how they help nurture them and support them in a very different way. So I see that in most of the organizations that I’m going in. And I can honestly tell you that that probably was not the core focus of many of these organizations prior to COVID.

Anthony Codispoti: You know, one of the questions that I love to ask most of my guests is, hey, labor market is still pretty tight, hard to find and hold on to good folks. You know, what are some strategies that you’ve tried and found success with?

And I’m hearing you volunteer up some of the things that are going on. And I’m curious, you know, as you talk about being more focused on employees, financial, emotional well-being, kind of the whole picture of the person. Can you give some examples of what that kind of looks like in a practical real world sense? Like what somebody who’s working for you, what’s something that they may get from medical solutions that they weren’t accustomed to getting somewhere else?

Patti Artley: So we have culture teams that really are in, I’d call them either like an engagement team that really pays attention and they’re employee led. So they tell us what do we want to work on and what are we interested in seeing as part of our benefit package. So we have a well-being. One of them is a well-being impact team and that well-being team is really focused on and our benefits are actually focused on the physical, mental, financial and emotional well-being of our clients and, I’m sorry, of our employees. And really, how do we give back to the community?

That’s part of that team as well. So volunteerism, we support it. We encourage it. We pay for it. So we pay our teams to go out and volunteer and pick that service that they would like to provide and we support that. And we encourage it as a team so that it is a team building environment. We do one of the things that we’re just in the process of planning is that physical challenge.

We just did one in December with my own team and in April, we’re planning it for the entire organization so that we do a platform and you log your success and you do it in teams. And really, it’s that opportunity to take care of yourself and know that it’s important for us that you take care of yourself. And we offer flexible PTO for our teams and really encourage them to use it and how they take care of themselves and I think a really strong benefit package that supports that mental well-being and knowing that, you know, taking care of yourself and taking care of your family is really important for you to come to work every day as your best self.

Anthony Codispoti: Lots of really interesting and impressive things that you brought up there. One that kind of jumped out to me is the community involvement and you actually pay your employees to go volunteer somewhere else. Patty, this isn’t adding to your bottom line. This is taking money from it. Like walk me through that thought process. Sure.

Patti Artley: So groups like my clinical team or credentialing team or any one of the teams in the organization pick up program that they’re passionate about. For me personally, I’ve been on the board of Ronald McDonald House for years and so we would give back to the Ronald McDonald House. One of the things that we did last year was we went out and we wrapped presents for kids in an underserved area where it was really an opportunity for us to build a team.

So our entire, you know, leadership team divided in half. Half of us went to do that and half went to another to a food shelter. So really what’s important to us to make sure that we’re taking care of the community as well that we serve. And I think, you know, you can nickel and dime or you can really determine that what’s important is that you’re taking care of the people that you’re serving. And as a leader, that’s the reason that I love medical solutions and why I want to work here. You know, we’ve had our we’ve had our fair share of problems as an organization, right? Our book of business has had a downturn, but we still stay true to making sure that we’re supporting our partners, the people that work for us each and every day and our clinicians that we’re putting on assignment. So there are a lot of, I think, ways that you can choose to deal with that. But as long as you have a balance and a blend and you’re you’re moving with the right intentions, I think you weather them rather well.

Anthony Codispoti: I like that. Patty, I want to shift gears for a moment and invite you to talk about a serious challenge that you’ve overcome, either personal professional combination of the two. What that was like going through it, maybe some lessons that you learned going through the other side of it.

Patti Artley: I think the worst professional was probably during COVID. We had a lot of our staff leave, as did most most hospitals, whether it was to the retirement, left the profession, travel industry, had to take care of children at home and couldn’t straddle 12 hour shifts and try to be homeschooling children. You know, health care had a lot of that. And the other competing factor was we had so many unknowns about the disease and the disease process. And as a leader, I felt like we did whack-a-mole kind of leadership, right?

So we were in constant react mode. And that for me was a huge internal struggle because I really like to be proactive, look at data. There’s no time to look at data during COVID. Somebody else is deciphering data for you and telling you what to do. And sometimes that changed four times in a day.

You know, different messages would come out or different mandates would come out from different governing bodies. And it was very difficult during that time to get through and navigate those. One of the things that I really learned during that time, because we became insular and isolated and we reacted all the time. And it was when we got back to that going back to our basics and leader rounding and getting on the units and really understanding the challenges and the infrastructure.

We always knew that was the most important part. But it was really difficult when you’re trying to stand up units, staff units, do all of those things that don’t allow you to be strategic and proactive. And so really it underscored for me the importance of being present, the importance of understanding what your team needs and focusing on the right things. And so that’s one of the, from a personal, I mean, from a professional struggle, that’s probably, I think one of the biggest challenges I had and the biggest leadership challenges that I had by far.

Anthony Codispoti: What did you find was a good coping mechanism? How did you get through those challenging times? Was there a support network of other chief nursing officers? Was, do you have a great partner at home? I don’t know. What was your escape or go to?

Patti Artley: Yeah. So honestly, I was the president of South Carolina Organization of Nurse Leaders as well. So that was at the same time. And we pulled all the chief nurses across the state of South Carolina together to do best practices and lessons learned. And a great partner with the South Carolina Hospital Association, they stood it up knowing that there was no way that any of the CNOs could stand up that kind of thing during the fires that we were working on. So I had a great partner there and she was just compassionate and helpful. And the fact that you recognize that all of us were in it together, we were sharing best practices. We moved from competitors to collaborators and really stopped thinking about how do we compete for business? Because honestly, none of us wanted the amount of business that we had.

To be completely honest, I would have given away a lot of my units to anybody. But I think just knowing that we’re all in it together and that we were collaborative and sharing best practices was probably my best support through all of that. I had a great leadership team, absolutely phenomenal leadership team that I worked with at the time both as my, you know, my day-to-day COO partner, my chief medical officer partner, my CEO. They were just phenomenal and were great to work with. But my leadership team that worked with me through all of that was supportive, was understanding, caring, compassionate. And truly, I couldn’t have been prouder of them. So I think those were my biggest resources and my biggest supports.

Anthony Codispoti: That’s great. What kind of future innovations can we look forward to? You’re an innovative person. You’ve already implemented a lot of really neat things there. What are some things that are coming down the road?

Patti Artley: So I think we’re really going to be looking at how do we help support with virtual right now? So how do we think about providing care in a very different way?

And looking at what is the partnership or what are the platforms that we can help support? You know, nursing’s really provided care in the same way since the 70s. And we have to think about that differently if we’re going to be successful. And nurses are going to continue to churn at the bedside unless they feel like what the work they’re doing is allowing them to practice at the top of their license. So I think that that virtual care is going to be paramount to being able to provide care in a different way. So I think that’s one of the things that I know that we are looking at and how we create care in a different way.

Anthony Codispoti: And is that through providing that care through some of your partners, doing it sort of more as like a home-baked model or not sure yet, still sort of exploring?

Patti Artley: We’re vetting that out right now. Right now we support our teams that have virtual nursing right now through placing travelers in their systems. But expanding on that to make sure that all areas, especially some of the smaller rural areas, how do we help support them in a different way? Because they have very minimal and limited resources. And how do we help provide that care? The same person who is the registered nurse does just about everything in some of these rural. They’re clean in the rooms and they’re serving the meals and doing everything from soups to nuts. And so how do we help really elevate them and give them some extra support?

Anthony Codispoti: That would be interesting to see how that unfolds for you. I just have one more question for you, Patty. But before I ask it, I want to do two things. Everyone listening today, I know that you like today’s content. Patty has been amazing. Please hit the like, share, subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. Patty, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you. What would that be?

Patti Artley: So we can provide with you medicalsolutions.com. So Kristen, who’s on the call and not showing her face right now. But Kristen actually manages that website. We have a team that manages that website. And anytime anything comes through that’s clinically based, it comes to me so that I can help and help navigate.

Anthony Codispoti: Great. And it’s a super easy website to remember and spell medicalsolutions.com. Check it out, everybody. So last question for you, Patty. Whether you think about the medical solutions business or your larger industry as a whole, I’m curious what you see being the big changes that are coming in the next couple of years. Yeah.

Patti Artley: So I think we will continue to see organizations, whether they are staffing organizations or whether they are hospitals, continue to acquire at a large rate. I really think that it’s necessary and something that is inevitable. I think that you will continue to see diversification of the services that are provided in the industry as well as for hospitals and health systems. They have to be innovative and they have to be creative in the way they provide care. Healthcare reform continues to make payment strategies and reimbursement strategies very difficult for organizations. So this is why that innovation I think in partnership and collaboration is necessary to make them stay afloat.

Anthony Codispoti: Why do you think that the mergers, the acquisitions are so necessary at this time?

Patti Artley: Access to care. So I think that if we’re going to continue to provide access to care in a lot of our smaller areas and throughout the states, I think about the states that we serve and even the state I live in. I live in Charleston, South Carolina, where it’s a little more populated, but the rest of the state has a lot of access to care challenges. And if we don’t support and acquire and partner with some of those smaller hospitals and some of the areas would just not have access to care, and it’s so critical during this time. I think the virtual platform, which is why one of the things that is important to me, we were able to provide access to care through telemedicine throughout the state.

And we converted that during COVID and it continues throughout the state and throughout all the school districts in South Carolina, even today, because there’s just not other options. And so it’s going to be being creative, providing care in different ways. I think that virtual platform, the AI technology that’s out there and really helping leverage those different technologies to help provide the care is required for access.

Anthony Codispoti: Where do you see AI fitting in or how is it currently fitting in for what you guys are doing? Sure.

Patti Artley: It helps us create, it pulls data elements from multiple areas. So when I was the chief nurse at our hospital system, we leveraged it in our early warning symptoms and systems.

And it was really pulling data elements that I might not all put together right away. And I think that’s critical, especially as we have newer nurses at the bedside, really helping them alert them that this might be a problem. So that’s where hospitals are using it. They’re using AI to help pull data elements from the monitoring systems into the technology that’s their documentation system to help them make better decisions.

It’s really proactively helping you schedule. What does the data look like for your last three years? How do you use OR utilization data to help you make decisions about how to staff an OR?

Or when does staff, the organizations that are supporting that, inpatient units, the PACUs, all of those areas that support operating rooms. So it really does allow us to leverage data in a very different way and help us make decisions. We at the end of the day, it’s not going to take my place. It’s going to help me make better decisions and hopefully better patient outcomes, better staff outcomes because of it.

Anthony Codispoti: Well, that’s exciting to hear. This isn’t an AI. Maybe it’ll happen kind of scenario somewhere down the road, possibly in the future. This is what I’m hearing you say is, here’s how we’re already using it right now.

Here’s how it’s helping us improve and allowing you to be more effective at your job, allowing you to support your employees better and ultimately delivering better patient care, which is the ultimate goal at the end of the day, right? Agreed. Well, Patty, I want to thank you for being such an amazing guest. I appreciate you sharing both your time and your story with us today. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Well, folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.