On the move....

This week, I am delighted to be able to report that I have been offered and have accepted a new position as Professional Nurse Advisor for New Zealand Blood Service. It has been a lengthy process, but finally the news is in!! So, as well as completing the work for this paper, it is also a time for reflecting on and evaluating my contribution to an organisation I have loved to work for….

We had our accreditation process over the last week. Sometimes scared, as I guess we all feel when the auditors whoever they are come to town….it was in fact a really positive process. The lady that undertook to evaluate clinical education (my bit of the big picture) was really helpful. We talked a lot about closing the loop for quality initiatives and demonstrating the worth of education to the bean counters. (I feel she has been walking with me these last few weeks!). What surprised me most though were the things she chose to single out and recognise about our team achievement. The ordinary things that we do each day and how we rarely value them for what they are truly worth. I suspect we are all guilty of that….always on to the next project as the organisation moves onward. I will be grateful to her more than she will ever know, because of the focus she brought to giving a mandate to evaluate. For my team now, this will be the next part of their development and, in the light of her report; it will be something they can focus on.

What I am going to be sad about is the extra time it is going to take for e-learning to become a reality for my colleagues: it may be another year before my replacement gets to this stage……but for me the prospects are wonderful….I am going to an organisation who have already got a brand spanking new LMS and the will to go with that……YAY!! The time on the battlefield with CFO hasn’t been wasted: I learned a lot from his questions about value and seeking other opinions from outside of the choir stalls and coming as it has with this paper too, I will go better equipped and ready to talk in outcomes…..

And one other thing from accreditation…... As she left, the auditor said….always just ask yourself one question….What was your original purpose…and start your evaluation from there. I think pretty reasonable advice. 

Sam