Education Resource Nurse: Engaging Clinical Nurses to Enhance the Patient Experience

It is challenging to implement a hospital discharge process that effectively prepares patients for success at home, especially when self-care needs are immense. This article describes a disruptive model that leverages nurse autonomy on an acute care medical-surgical hospital unit. The integration of an education resource nurse within existing resources is showing positive gains in 30-day readmission rates and specific patient experience metrics. The continued success of this newly created role is dependent on an adaptive capacity to leverage principles of complexity leadership and to grow the role within the ever-changing health care environment.