Linda Jameson, Eastern Plumas Health Care\u2019s new Director of Nursing is in an interesting position. Right now, she\u2019s in her last month as Chief Nursing Officer at Plumas District Hospital (PDH), where she\u2019s worked since 2005. She\u2019s clearly loved her job and is well-loved in return at PDH, so this last month has been an unusual transition.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not a lame duck, I\u2019m a dead duck,\u201d she said. \u201cIt feels like dying. You try to give your best advice before you go, try to lay down a foundation on how to deal with different things.\u201d There are other staff members who have moved on and are working as if she\u2019s already gone. \u201cIt\u2019s like watching it go on without you,\u201d she observed. Jameson added that PDH\u2019s Chief Executive Officer Doug Lafferty has been very supportive of her during this process.
\nHer mind is on the future, however. \u201cIt\u2019s like a new home. Not just moving, but building a new house. There\u2019s a sense of creativity and energy. It\u2019s very different. At PDH, I walked in with no training, but the programs were set up. The house was built. This time, I feel like I\u2019m recreating myself\u2014at least that\u2019s my hope.\u201d
\nJameson is very aware that she needs to be sensitive to the staff already in place at Eastern Plumas Health Care. She likens it to building a new house with the crew that\u2019s already on site. \u201cIt\u2019s important to understand the culture of the new place,\u201d Jameson acknowledged. \u201cI don\u2019t know them [the staff] at all.\u201d Still, she finds that exciting and challenging, as well. \u201cI know I\u2019m going to work harder building this, but I want to do that.\u201d
\nFor Jameson, creating a new life, starting fresh, also means going home. She lives in EPHC\u2019s district and says that she\u2019s felt like an outsider at times at PDH. She can\u2019t vote there, and it was particularly pertinent when she was Interim CEO and under consideration for the permanent CEO position. She was told she\u2019d have to move to the Quincy area in order to be considered for the job. But, EPHC is also home because she started out here, working at the hospital from 1997 \u2013 2002 as a staff nurse in Emergency Room and Acute Care.
\nPrior to coming to EPHC, she\u2019d worked in large hospitals doing critical care. This was her first taste of rural health care, and she loved it. \u201cI loved the patients,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt I could do a lot of good here\u2014it\u2019s in-depth and personal.\u201d And, strangely, it felt physically familiar. The floor of the EPHC building had the same feel to it as the one where she started\u2014at Harbor General, UCLA, Critical Care. \u201cIt had a feel that took me back that I liked,\u201d said Jameson.
\nIn addition, she admitted her own aunt to the skilled nursing facility here. \u201cSo, you really do take care of your family and friends. I loved that I knew my patients,\u201d she said. \u201cI love coming back to where I started\u2014back in that same building.\u201d
\nJameson is very well liked by her staff, and her reputation precedes her here. She gave a window into her management style. \u201cI don\u2019t want to hear anything negative. Everyone starts with a clean slate. That\u2019s very empowering.\u201d She allowed as how small town gossip can be insidious as well as incorrect. \u201cThey get it wrong. It\u2019s an infestation of the organization and the hardest thing to stop.\u201d
\nBesides emphasizing a positive new start, Jameson said that fairness and honesty are very important to her. For both herself and her staff, she feels \u201cit\u2019s okay to make mistakes. You say, I\u2019m human, I\u2019m not perfect.\u201d She also believes in \u201ctransparency\u201d–you admit your mistakes and then you learn from them.
\nJameson said she learned good communication skills and an understanding of motivations in a school of hard knocks\u2014a lock-down mental health ward. \u201cDealing with it on a life and death level, you get a different philosophy of how to talk to people\u2014you respect the power of the human mind.\u201d
\nJameson was very clear about her reasons for coming to Eastern Plumas Health Care. First, she said, she really likes the Board of Directors. EPHC \u201chas a Board I respect. No one person is too strong. It\u2019s a very committed board and bias free.\u201d Second, she\u2019s a part of this community; she likes the idea of coming home. A third \u201cbig motivator,\u201d she said, \u201cis CEO, Tom Hayes. I like Tom\u2019s style. I bonded with him when I took over as Interim CEO of PDH. I think he\u2019s a class act.\u201d She appreciated his openness and also his willingness to listen and to give her advice. \u201cHe was someone I could talk to in confidence and I knew it would stay confidential.\u201d
\nShe added that she\u2019s confident they\u2019ll work very well together, as they have similar styles. Also, he lets his managers make their own decisions, which she appreciates. \u201cI\u2019m very loyal to the CEO and the hospital,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd, I already know that Tom will support me. I can lift that from my shoulders.\u201d
\nHayes echoed her sentiments. \u201cI enjoyed working with Linda when she was Interim CEO. I know she really wants what\u2019s best for our community, and I\u2019ve been impressed with her expertise. She\u2019s committed to improving health care at EPHC.\u201d
\nWhen asked what she hopes to accomplish, Jameson sits up straighter. She\u2019s clearly given this plenty of thought. First of all, she\u2019s interested in creating educational opportunities for the nursing staff. \u201cThat\u2019s the number one thing,\u201d she said, \u201cfor nurses to have resources.\u201d Because a small, rural hospital has limited resources and limits to the extent of staff experience in certain areas, it\u2019s great to bring top quality educators in. \u201cWe can\u2019t all be experts,\u201d she said. She hopes to network with PDH and with other interested community members to provide classes locally. Further, she hopes to entice both nurses and physicians to participate.
\nA second vital accomplishment, she said, is to come to understand the \u201cculture and needs of each individual within the hospital.\u201d Everyone plays an important role, she said, and they need to work together to be successful. She said she looks forward to doing daily rounds, which will help her accomplish the staff integration she believes is so important. It will also allow her to go down a checklist of quality control measures to make sure that everything is up to standards.
\nIn addition, Telemedicine Oncology and Diabetes are big interests. \u201cIt\u2019s a perfect match for this community,\u201d she said. She pointed out that EPHC was the first hospital to offer a Telemedicine Oncology Program, which connects EPHC cancer patients with Oncology experts from Tahoe Forest Cancer Center, under the guidance of Medical Director, Dr. Larry Heifetz.
\nTahoe-Forest is connected with UC Davis\u2019s Cancer Center, which is one of only three in California and only 60 nationwide that are National Cancer Institute rated hospital systems. What this means for EPHC\u2019s cancer patients, is that this tiny rural hospital has access to some of the best cancer specialists in the nation through its Telemedicine Oncology Program.
\nJameson will also weigh in on EPHC\u2019s Diabetes Telemedicine Program, which has the only diabetic retinopathy camera in Plumas or Sierra Counties. Through telemedicine, these diabetic eye screenings are sent to experts at UC Berkeley who read the images and, if necessary, make recommendations for further treatment.
\nThe fact that all of this is available right here for EPHC\u2019s patients is an arena of great possibility in Jameson\u2019s eyes and a service of incalculable advancement for the patients she now will be serving. In fact, she said when she thought about making the move to EPHC, she \u201ccouldn\u2019t come up with a negative. So many things are right\u2014the right time, right place, the right time in my life. It feels pretty empowering to say that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Linda Jameson, Eastern Plumas Health Care\u2019s new Director of Nursing is in an interesting position. Right now, she\u2019s in her last month as Chief Nursing Officer at Plumas District Hospital (PDH), where she\u2019s worked since 2005. She\u2019s clearly loved her job and is well-loved in return at PDH, so this last month has been an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}