Joyce Batcheller, RN, MSN, CNAA, is currently a Senior Vice President & Network Chief Nursing Officer for the Seton Family of Hospitals in Austin, Texas. In addition, Joyce serves as the co-patient safety officer with the network Chief Medical officer. In her role as CNO, Ms. Batcheller coordinates nursing practice among 2800 nurses in a complex and geographically dispersed system. Four Seton acute-care hospitals have achieved Magnet Designation by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and three have achieved the Texas Nurse friendly designation.
Ms. Batcheller received her MSN degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX in 1983. She came to the Seton system in 1994 from Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia where she was responsible for Transplant and Critical Care areas. She is currently pursuing her doctorate degree from the School of Nursing, University of Texas at Austin and is currently completing the three year Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Executive fellowship.
“There was a great deal of variation in how nursing units managed the delivery of care. As the CNO, I believed it was important to develop a model of care that would be reflective of the kind of professional nursing practice environment that we wanted to provide. We began by building what we believed were principles of caring for patients that could serve as the framework for our model. In addition, We felt it was essential, in the professional nursing practice environment that we provided through the model, that novice nurses have on-going mentoring long after orientation was over. A healthy nursing work environment, patient satisfaction, physician satisfaction and patient safety are interrelated and served as the major drivers we believed we could align with the our model.”
“The most important thing we learned is to frame what the non-negotiable principles and outcomes are that must be achieved. Allowing staff flexibility and input on how to modify and continue to enhance the PCT model has been essential.”
