Paula Bird named a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow

Dix Director of Nursing Paula Bird is one of 20 nurses in executive leadership roles nationwide selected as 2005 Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows. The prestigious program focuses on redesigning the nation’s health care system for the 21st century.

“Nurses must play a pivotal role in leading the redesign and success of health care now and into the future,” said Dr. Terry Stelle, Dorothea Dix Hospital director. “The Executive Nurse Fellowship is an intensive opportunity to develop critical leadership skills and work with a nationally recognized team of coaches and instructors from within the health care industry. We’re honored and excited that Paula was selected.”

As part of the fellowship, Bird will undertake a leadership project with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and support from Dorothea Dix Hospital. Bird’s project will focus on the impact of fewer and fewer qualified RNs choosing to work in psychiatric acute-care hospitals by training other staff to do some of tasks that are currently done by RNs but do not require an RN-level of competency. RNs cannot delegate responsibility, but they can delegate tasks. Her project will develop a program that teaches, fosters and enhances leadership skills in the direct-care RNs and mid-level manger RNs to empower them to more effectively use other personnel such as psychiatric and rehabilitation technicians, medication aides, and phlebotomists.

In addition to her work at Dix, Bird is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at UNC–Chapel Hill, and is board-certified in Nursing Administration, Advanced, by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She has been in nursing for 20 years and has worked in various roles including direct patient care, staff development, management, research, and administration.
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Last Modified: June 29, 2005 June 30, 2005