Chelsea Rolain, MSN, RNC-OB, C-EFM, NPD-BC

Chelsea Rolain is a Nursing Professional Development Specialist (NPD) in our Surgical Services department at Aurora BayCare Medical Center and has been active in an NPD role for over 12 years. She is an incredible resource for our team and has taken a lead role in ensuring the success and retention of our new teammates. They understand the difficulty in retaining new staff and the need for leadership and peer support. We identified that new hires had very little interaction with other orientees within their own department or service line, and we need to offer additional support. Chelsea is the co-leader/developer of the New Hire Huddle, which provides all new hires with time away from the bedside regularly. Chelsea consistently displays empathy and compassion to foster deep connections and create a safe environment in which to share thoughts and ideas. This is what the “New Hire Huddles” are all about. Discussing individual wins, barriers to success, onboarding requirements, and covering specific specialty topics are facilitated during huddles every other Friday for 1-2 hours.

Chelsea has had a noteworthy impact in implementing an Education Channel on Teams as a real-time resource, HUB, for bedside staff to reference, and it is available on any computer. As a healthcare system facing higher acuity, more complex patients, and more intensive treatments/procedures. It is challenging for staff to keep up with the various procedures and skills and to locate resources, and the Education Channel has helped tremendously. Chelsea provides effective communication on this channel, including actively listening to staff needs and presenting clear job aides for real-time patient care. Staff have come to utilize this resource frequently and bring up additional ideas to grow the educational resource platform. She is open to their ideas, does the literature searching, and provides the most up-to-date practice to support quality outcomes.

Chelsea's involvement in our healthcare system goes beyond her unit-level responsibilities. She is a co-investigator in the Impact of Simulation on Nurse Orientee Clinical Judgement research study, a role that underscores her commitment to advancing healthcare practices. Additionally, she has taken on a Nurse Educator role in clinical rotations as a UWGB co-clinical instructor. Her dedication to lifelong learning and her ability to build relationships outside the department make her an asset to our team, and we are grateful for her commitment to the success and retention of our current and potential future employees.