Moving Away From The Annual Skills Fair Using The Wright Competency Model and Xapimed.

NorthBay Health is an independent health system in Solano County in northern California, dedicated to providing compassionate care and advanced medicine close to home. NorthBay Health is part of the Mayo Clinic Care Network but remains Solano County’s only locally-based, locally-managed non-profit healthcare organization.

NorthBay’s nursing professional practice model includes the values of Community, Teamwork, Respect, Quality, Trust, Integrity, and Competence. This model guides their nursing practice. NorthBay ensures that their nurses are prepared and able to work at the top of their license through a strong commitment to nursing professional development. That’s why Dr. JoAnn Munski, Director of Nursing Education and Clinical Practice Development, recently moved NorthBay away from a yearly nursing skills fair in favor of ongoing competency validation. Dr. Munski and her Nursing Professional Development (NPD) practitioners use the Wright Competency Model1 to deliver quarterly and ongoing education and to validate nursing competencies.

Dr. Munski wasn’t satisfied by just replacing the annual skills fair. She wanted to digitize the new process with workflows that were standard across the entire organization but still customizable enough to fit each unit. That’s where Xapimed came in. We partnered with NorthBay’s NPD team to create a competency management system tailored to fit their specific needs. Using the Xapimed platform, the NPD team designed a Competency Template to use with their nurses, respiratory therapists, and non-clinical staff in their hospital and clinics. Managers can now plan out their quarterly competencies for the entire year while still having the flexibility to add ongoing education as needed. Staff can digitally validate competencies at the bedside. Information is available across the organization in real time and on any device. Data flows into reports that are automatically emailed to the leaders who need them. Leaders no longer spend hours compiling data and manually updating spreadsheets. And Xapimed easily integrates with other systems to help with workforce management, quality measures, key performance indicators (KPIs), and patient outcomes. Safety, quality, and positive outcomes are directly linked to a care team’s attitudes and behavior, attributes that are integral to the culture at the unit and organizational level2. And as Donna Wright once said, “Ongoing competency verifications are what change culture.”