SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, my name is Ajua Chemateng of the National Minority Equality Forum, and this is For Your Health News. Your health, your news, your power. And I'm here with Adriana Nava.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Adriana, would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, thank you so much. My name is Adriana Nava. I'm a registered nurse and health services researcher based here in Washington, D.C.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

And Adriana is being humble here because she's also part of our 40 under 40 class of 2025 of minority health leaders. Top, top 40 across the country. Congratulations, Adriana. I would like to just understand, you know, what you why you think you're here today. What motivates you? And, you know, why is health equity so important to you?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, and I'm really excited to be a part of this cohort, just reading everyone's bios and everything that they're passionate about and really driven to make a change in their communities. And that's one of the things that I'm really proud of of what I've done in my career, is really trying to amplify the work of nurses, but also Hispanics in the US, and trying to amplify our power in order to make changes in our community. So I'm really excited to be a part of this cohort.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

So, you know, um people always say, I think the nurses are one of the most loved like people, they're the most loved professions. What would you say is the most important role for nurses? You know, what would you say to other nurses is the most important thing about being a nurse?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, I think sometimes it's easy to get lost in the daily tasks of nursing care, whether it's you know, changing linens or giving medications, but really nurses play such an integral role of building trust in our healthcare system. And they're usually there when, and unfortunately, adverse events happen, whether it's a patient coding or noticing when vital signs start to you know go awry and notifying physicians. So they're really there like all the time, and especially if they're inpatient care, and being able to build that trust with families and patients to make sure that they're getting the care that they receive and really being their advocates at the bedside.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

You know, um, unfortunately, we've heard a lot about nursing shortages. You know, why do you think that folks aren't coming to the profession as they used to?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

It's been challenging, especially during COVID. A lot of times the nurses didn't have a voice to advocate for their own needs in a work environment. So that was a challenge. And then you have, you know, burnout being an issue that was coupling what was happening with the greater pandemic. But even before COVID, we've had a history of nursing being invisible in terms of reimbursement for specific nursing care, not necessarily being integrated into quality measures that are, you know, reimbursed for. So our profession, unfortunately, has gone under the radar of our contributions that we give to the larger healthcare ecosystem.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

You talk about, I guess, in a way the role of nurses have evolved, right? So perhaps our policies haven't kept up with that evolved evolution. Yeah, what would you say, you know, really needs to be considered now when it comes to reimbursement? Like what areas of practice of nursing have been invisible?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yeah, so I think a lot of times the nursing care was traditionally task-based, and then now we're getting patients that are a lot more acute in terms of more chronic conditions, comorbidities, and now we've recognized the importance of the social drivers of health. So nurses are now having to navigate these complex care plans that not weren't necessarily not that they didn't exist before, but a lot of times, you know, it wasn't necessarily within the purview of the healthcare system or nursing care for us to document on those issues and then follow up with them. So now as we're continuing to increase the scope of nursing care, it's become challenging for nurses to continually add more to their tool belt in terms of things to do within a short time period. And even nurses, you know, right now there's a lot of uh focus on remote workers. You can't really remote in a nurse or use AI to take care of patients, at least not at this point. So nurses are having to evolve in terms of like how do we integrate technology to enhance nursing care, what kind of data do we need to collect to kind of see what is good quality nursing care and how does that link up to greater population health outcomes. So there's still a lot of work to be done, but even just the workforce component of like nursing care and the way that they are able to contribute to their own work-life balance has been neglected in the past two years, especially after COVID.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

So much to unpack here. Wow. Okay, let's let's roll it back. Okay, so you talk about integrating technology. Um how can nurses keep up with this? I mean, you have to do your regular job, then you're coding, then you're trying to keep up with the latest and greatest. What would you say that, what kind of advice, I guess, would you give to nurses about keeping up with this current, you know, modern nurse?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

So a lot of nursing care isn't done in the silos. So we're part of larger healthcare teams, whether it's working with our IT partners, working with physicians, dietitians, et cetera, to be able to give that comprehensive nursing care that really is based on the larger T as well. But also going back to nursing education, being able to integrate some of those opportunities to explore the use of technology in nursing care, even with researchers and the academics trying to look at studies and pilot cases of best practices, and how do we integrate that into health systems are opportunities for us to explore.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

You know, um, you talk about more acute cases, uh more complex chronic conditions and care plans. You know, what would you say have been the best practices that you've seen if you could name one regarding navigating more complex care plans and a more complex population within a practice?

SPEAKER_01 6:03

So one of the things that has, at least from my experience working in the inpatient setting, is looking at standards. So with Joint Commission, they have put in standards where nurses should be documenting standardized care plans. And that's joint commission of the joint commission that is out of Chicago that builds standards for uh health care quality health hospitals. Right. But looking even further of like for nurses, like how do we capture quality? So in a previous role, I was working on nursing quality uh measures and how we can empower nurses to be able to capture data and how their care impacts health outcomes. So being able to, you know, be I know our our current uh focus for the conference is on data, putting data into action. Yes. So how can we as nurses be able to use codes that are in existence? And if they're not, how do we develop a set of codes as a profession to be able to track the care that we're able to provide to patients to show that we're we are uh delivering high-quality care, and it is going to be more effective, whether it's because of cost, reduction of infections, et cetera, to be able to improve outcomes within the hospital setting, but you really any setting that we're working in.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

So, you know, um there's been a lot of conversation around the future of healthcare, right? And the nurses, the role of nurses, particularly as some populations, for whatever rhyme or reason, don't have access to primary care, are not coming to sort of the traditional brick and mortar, you know, facility. Um, and you know, we talk a lot about nurses being navigators too, going out into community. What would you say as far as like if you could predict the future of nursing, what would it look like in your view?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Oh, that's a really great question. Um, I would really love to see nurses be empowered more in the health policy study in terms of being leaders within their community, being able to advocate for communities. We have such a great powerful skill set clinically, but we also have learned to be advocates and change makers at the bedside. Right. And being able to pull together partners and coalitions in the community level to advocate for changes that our community needs would be really be my ideal state of where I would love to see nurses leading the charge with improving the health of their communities.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

And um, you know, right now, folks, particularly in the Latino um uh community, um, there's some concern, you know, about access to care. What would what have you what have you seen, you know, as far as what could be um well, how can we better improve that situation?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

I think right now Medicaid plays an important role for our Latino community. One in four Latinos are currently insured through the Medicare program. And I know there's talks of states potentially getting rid of it or adding work requirements. So really making sure that that program is available to the most amount of people that are able to apply and get accepted is really important for our Latino community. Right. But also having opportunities to expand even, you know, access to those that might not be able to qualify for Medicaid but could buy in in an affordable price. I know affordability is often an issue for health insurance, especially if you're an individual that wants to start a business. Right. And you're have these, you know, American dream entrepreneurial spirit, but yet you don't have access to healthcare because you're trying to, you know, chase this dream. But making sure that there's options that are affordable that at least cover some basic level of benefits for you to be able to pursue your dreams.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

And I can imagine, you know, representation is so important, right? Um, particularly for those who are Spanish speaking. You know, what more could you say about that as far as you know, the future of the workforce and nursing workforce and engaging with the Spanish-speaking community?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

So currently the nursing workforce is about 7.9% are Hispanic, and we're looking at a work uh workforce that for Latinos is growing to be at least 25 to 30 percent by 2030. Wow. So we're underrepresented in the nursing profession, and I'm the previous president of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses. So we've really done a lot of work in terms of creating pipelines to get students, whether they're in elementary school or middle school or even though we're we did a program in the past year getting nurses really engaged with their community to teach children about nutrition, mental health, but also careers in nursing. So some of our chapters were out, you know, giving them little coats to try on, that's nursing coats and taking pictures and nurse for a day. So it was really exciting to see them engage with their local community and try to show that representation of Latinos as nurses and what do nurses do, and kind of like high-level um engagement with the community to get them excited about potential career opportunities for them.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

So if someone's watching right now and they're thinking, wow, this sounds pretty cool, what would you say to them about like what drives you and what is the most enriching piece about being a nurse?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Well, really drives me, I think, was when I was in nursing school, I this was before the ACA was passed. So I didn't have insurance. So I went through nursing school being uninsured and not having access was really scary in terms of if something was wrong, I just didn't go see care and couldn't even afford to think about like, oh, what if something else happens? Yeah. So having the opportunity to be that advocate and making sure I can um be that voice to make sure we have access to care for Latinos and everybody else that needs the access for preventative services, primary care, um, as a you know, entry point into our healthcare system is really important. And I'm really excited that we have nurses across the country that are excited to do the work as well and engage with communities. So that's makes me very proud.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Thank you so much, Adriana. I really appreciate this conversation today. Thank you.