When Ken Kilemi became nurse manager of Sibley’s inpatient oncology unit, one of the biggest challenges he faced was recruiting and onboarding nurses, and at the same time, making sure the unit is a place like home, so they want to stay for the long term.

Kilemi’s challenge isn’t unique to Sibley, or even to hospitals in Washington, D.C. Nationwide, it’s estimated that by 2030, there will be one million job openings for nurses at hospitals around the country, but not enough new nurses are projected to graduate from nursing school in time to fill them all.

Kilemi worked closely with individuals from human resources and nursing leadership to meet his unit’s needs. He found several new nurses and clinical associates with the skills and commitment to patient care that make them a great fit for his team and Sibley.

“The team is in place, and now we’re focused on elevating our practice so that when a patient comes to our unit, they know we are competent, compassionate and caring,” says Kilemi. “We want them to know that Sibley nurses are the best nurses and that Sibley is the place to come for care. We also want to improve our nursing care quality, patient safety outcomes and experience.”

Clinical nurse Beatriz Nunez-Colao joined the team a few months before Kilemi’s arrival, and says the entire team “feels like he brought fresh air” with him.

His day-to-day management of the unit is what he believes will make the team successful long term. “Nurses need to feel valued and engaged in the work they are doing so they can stay at Sibley, and they want to have an environment where they can work together to make the care on the unit the best it can be.”

For a group with so many new recruits, many of them younger nurses, part of that work is establishing processes to elevate the unit’s nursing practice and build the team’s cohesiveness at work. Once a week, the nurses pick an educational topic and Kilemi or one of the more senior staff nurses presents about it. There’s also a monthly Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program (CUSP) meeting led by clinical nurses to discuss patient care, safety and practice issues, and other challenges on the unit. Often, the unit nurses invite guests from other departments to offer new perspectives on meeting topics. Kilemi also writes a “Friday Flier” that is posted on the unit each week as a visual tool to remind the team about weekly goals, expectations and discussions.

Teaching a large group of front-line nurses and clinical associates, half of whom are new to the organization and the unit, to work together as a team requires more than training and education in best clinical practices, he adds. Throughout the course of the year (before the COVID-19 pandemic), they also held a number of offsite team-building activities.

Together, outside the demands of the unit, they did yoga, practiced breathing activities and shared life experiences. They also had a special Valentine’s dance in February for the whole team and their families at a rented hall with dinner and dancing.

“We are working through challenges, but at the same time, we try to have some fun, too,” says Kilemi. “We have team members from all over the world who need to get to know each other in order to work as a team and accomplish our mission.”  

Nunez-Colao says under Kilemi’s leadership, today, the unit nurses are “more motivated to improve daily work and the overall quality of care, because he transmits his own energy, ideas and motivation to us every day.”

He is also a big believer in work-life balance. “I’m very flexible with scheduling needs—for school, for family or other reasons. If people come to work when they are willing and happy, based on their needs, I’ll be able to keep them here.”

His success at recruitment, engagement and retention really stems from one basic principle—making sure both he and the team members look at each other as individuals and as professionals, with their own needs, wants and interests.

“It’s easy to move in the right direction when people realize you really value and care about them. They will listen, care for our patients, care for each other, and you will succeed as a team.”