Parkview Health has great nurses, and Linda Francies, senior vice president and chief nursing officer for Parkview Regional Medical Center and Affiliates, is an inspiring leader for our biggest cohort of nurses. Affiliates include all of Parkview's facilities in Allen County, Indiana, including Fort Wayne. That includes our two largest general hospitals, the flagship PRMC campus and the downtown Parkview Hospital Randallia, as well as Parkview Ortho Hospital, the new Parkview Southwest Outpatient Center, and Parkview Behavioral Health. Across those five sites, Linda now oversees approximately 2,000 nurses. Linda is responsible for leading these departments in the development, implementation, and coordination of high-quality, high-valued patient care and is responsible for competency and skill development of the nursing team, in addition to enhancing and refining the services within nursing and working in conjunction and collaboratively with other service lines.

As CNO, Linda ensures that proper measurements are in place to monitor the various aspects of performance outcomes, including patient perception of care, core measures, nursing sensitive indicators, success of new and existing programs, resource allocation, budget, and productivity. 

So what makes Linda a great nurse leader for Parkview? First, Linda brings more than 30 years of nursing experience to her role, including the past 15 years in nursing executive leadership. She served eight years as CNO at Parkview Medical Center in Colorado (not affiliated with Parkview Health here in Indiana) before coming to Fort Wayne and taking on nursing leadership for Parkview Health. Her six years with Parkview Health have all been spent in our Allen County market, first at Randallia before moving up to take on the wider PRMC and Affiliates role.

Second, Linda led PRMC and Affiliates as it earned a five-year Magnet reaccreditation with the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Earning Magnet status takes effective leadership to create a strong nursing culture and measure and demonstrate excellent care that improves outcomes, provides great patient experience.

Third, as CNO during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting workforce volatility in the healthcare industry during and after the most stressful periods of that response, Linda was a key leader in developing and implementing new, creative, flexible staffing models and solutions to not only attract and retain nurses, but to provide relief and reduce burnout after going through the extreme challenges of the pandemic. Among those solutions was an internal travel nurse program, allowing for flexible scheduling and assignments for three- to nine-month terms while keeping those nurses on staff as opposed to serving as external contractors unaffiliated with the hospital. Those programs have helped Parkview keep its nursing turnover rates about 4-5 percentage points below national benchmarks and helped maintain staffing as Parkview has grown including the opening of the Parkview Southwest, requiring dozens of additional, new nurses to serve in that facility.

Fourth, Linda has supported the development and implementation of a Virtual Nursing program within Parkview to improve patient care and ensure patient safety. While bedside nurses continue to provide traditional hands-on care to patients, virtual nurses provide support by handling more hands-off responsibilities such as completing admission histories, creating initial care plans, completing assessments and screenings, coordinating patient contacts and education, and meeting documentation and compliance requirements. Use of virtual nursing has improved job satisfaction among nurses, improved patient satisfaction, and improved documentation for Parkview.

Lastly, Linda is a major proponent of Parkview's nursing education program. Parkview hosts its own nurse residency program for new nurses, which starts with several hours of classroom onboarding and education before placing nurses into their roles with mentorship and support lasting for their first year on the job. During that year, nurse residents also go for monthly seminars and continuing education, allowing new nurses to quickly settle into their roles and continue to receive strong support from our experienced leaders and educators.

Her influence as a great leader is apparent in Allen County but also spreads to our other markets across more than 20 counties in northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio. Parkview Health has had 81 nurses recognized by the DAISY Foundation for excellent nursing care since 2021. In 2024 alone, Parkview had 27 nurses recognized as DAISY nurses, of which 19 were from PRMC and Affiliates facilities. Linda herself was named one of Beckers Healthcare's CNOs to Know in 2024, while Janette Richardson, a clinical nurse specialist at PRMC and close co-worker of Linda, was selected as one of the 2024 recipients of the American Nurses Association's Distinguished Direct Patient Care Award. On a wider scale, PRMC and Affiliates has received 21 A grades from the twice-annual Leapfrog Safety grades and two B grades over the last 12 years; PRMC was named the No. 4 overall hospital in Indiana with U.S. News and World Report in 2024; Parkview Ortho Hospital was selected as an Indiana Chamber of Commerce Best Place to Work in 2024; and PRMC has received numerous accolades including being named among Newsweek's Best-in-State Hospitals, a Newsweek Best Maternity Care Hospital; and an Indiana Hospital Association Hospital of Distinction for birthing care. Parkview Health as a system has also been frequently recognized with culture and workplace awards such as Newsweek Most Loved Workplaces; Inspiring Workplaces; Forbes Best Employers by State; NRC Health Excellence in Patient Experience; and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce/Jackson Lewis DEI Champion Award.

Although Linda is only one person in our organization, nursing care and our nurse workforce have a huge impact on these various awards, and the leadership and culture Linda has helped instill in our Allen County market are a major component of our ongoing success. Linda's leadership as CNO and leadership among Parkview's biggest cohort of nurses have been instrumental in improving nursing quality for both patients and for the nurses themselves, and have allowed Parkview to continue to provide excellent care and grow its scope of services even despite industrywide shortages and challenges in skilled nursing. Linda Francies is a true DAISY Nurse Leader.