Michele Szkolnicki, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Summary

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Summary

Episode: Michele Szkolnicki, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
Release Date: July 28, 2025
Host: Becker's Healthcare
Recorded At: Becker's 15th Annual Meeting

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1. Introduction to Michele Szkolnicki

In this insightful episode of the Becker’s Healthcare Podcast, host Hailey Recker engages in a compelling conversation with Michele Szkolnicki, the Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. With over 25 years of leadership experience in healthcare, Michele brings a unique perspective shaped by her diverse roles, including serving as a CNO and Chief Operating Officer for various physician practice plans.

Quote:
"I particularly enjoy the wide scope that I have on everything that has to do with how you deliver healthcare on the inpatient side, the outpatient side, and, you know, with practice plan experience too."
— Michele Szkolnicki [00:52]

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2. Navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery

Michele delves into the profound impact COVID-19 had on the healthcare system, particularly on the nursing workforce. The pandemic not only strained resources but also led to significant challenges in nurse retention and recruitment. Michele emphasizes the necessity of shifting focus from pandemic response to rebuilding the nursing workforce and restoring foundational nursing practices.

Key Points:

• COVID-19 caused a considerable exodus of nurses from bedside roles.
• The rise of agency nurses during the pandemic further depleted the permanent nursing staff.
• Transitioning back from pandemic-induced adaptations to essential nursing practices was critical.

Quote:
"The last 12 months has basically been putting everything back together again. Some people call it getting back to the basics. I call it getting back to the essentials."
— Michele Szkolnicki [02:02]

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3. Addressing Workforce Challenges

Workforce shortages remain a pressing issue in healthcare. Michele outlines innovative strategies employed at Penn State Health to tackle these challenges, focusing on both recruitment and retention. Her multifaceted approach includes:

• Recruitment Initiatives: Engaging agency nurses to permanently join the organization and expanding programs to integrate new graduate nurses effectively.

• Retention Strategies: Implementing comprehensive support systems such as rapprochement rooms for mental health and expanding mental health benefits to address the traumatic nature of nursing.

• Innovation in Workforce Management: Incorporating staff-facing chaplains and recreational therapists to diversify the support system and enhance patient care without solely relying on traditional nursing roles.

Key Achievements:

• Reduced the number of agency nurses from 200 to 20 within a year and a half.
• Decreased turnover rates from over 22% to 9.3%, achieving top decile performance.

Quote:
"Over the course of a year and a half, we have gone down from 200 agency nurses to 20. We've gone from a turnover rate of 22 point something percent down to 9.3%, which is, by the way, top decile performance."
— Michele Szkolnicki [06:12]

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4. Leadership Lessons and Advice

Michele shares invaluable leadership insights, emphasizing the importance of a comprehensive, multi-initiative approach to problem-solving rather than seeking quick fixes. She advocates for sustained, collective efforts to address complex issues within healthcare.

Key Insights:

• Avoid chasing singular solutions ("shiny pennies") and instead implement a diverse range of initiatives to effectively resolve significant problems.
• A holistic approach was pivotal in restoring the nursing workforce and improving turnover rates post-COVID.

Quote:
"Any significant problem is going to take a whole palette of initiatives that together will help you get there... It takes all of that stuff. Stop chasing shoddy pennies."
— Michele Szkolnicki [07:59]

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5. Final Thoughts on the Nursing Profession

Concluding the conversation, Michele underscores the critical role of nurses and advocates for recognizing bedside nursing as a pinnacle career path. She highlights the need to inspire future nurses to remain on the frontline, enhancing their expertise and leadership within hospital settings.

Key Points:

• Encouraging nurses to see hospital bedside roles as the peak of their careers, offering opportunities for continuous learning and leadership.
• Emphasizing mentorship and guidance for new nurses and physicians to foster a supportive and knowledgeable healthcare environment.

Quote:
"There is something very special with being the seasoned nursing expert on the floor. Staying in a hospital, at the bedside, learning more and more so that you can guide new nurses, so you can guide new physicians is something that we need to concentrate more on."
— Michele Szkolnicki [08:59]

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Conclusion

Michele Szkolnicki’s insights provide a comprehensive look into the challenges and solutions surrounding the nursing workforce in the post-COVID era. Her dedication to rebuilding and supporting the nursing community at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center serves as a compelling model for healthcare leaders aiming to strengthen their organizations amidst ongoing workforce challenges.

Final Quote:
"Nursing is such an important profession. It's important that we support nursing."
— Michele Szkolnicki [08:59]

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This episode offers valuable perspectives for healthcare professionals and leaders dedicated to fostering resilient and effective nursing teams, ensuring the highest quality of patient care.

Transcript

[A]

At Insight Global Health, we are dedicated to helping you and improving healthcare for everyone. That means building stronger teams and delivering sustainable solutions that truly make a difference. We offer a full spectrum of talent and technical services and deliver cross industry expertise to bring you innovative best practices to solve the problems that we face in healthcare. We're not just promising you results, we are delivering them. Visit [e-mail] this is Hailey Recker with.

[B]

The Beckers Healthcare Podcast and we are recording live at the Becker's 15th annual meeting today. I'm thrilled to be joined by Michelle Skolnicki, Senior VP and Chief Nursing Officer at Penn State Health, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Michelle, thank you so much for joining me today.

[C]

I am so happy to be here. Thank you.

[B]

Well, before we get started, I'd love it if you could go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit further and tell us more about your background.

[C]

Well, as you said, I am the Senior Vice President, Chief Nursing Officer for Hershey Medical center, which is part of the Penn State Health Health System. I have been in healthcare leadership for over 25 years. That's literally when I stopped counting. And what I think I bring to the nursing profession is that my track is not the typical track of a cno, of a chief nursing officer. I have been a chief nursing officer in another organization, but I've also been the chief operating officer for several physician practice plans. So I like, I particularly enjoy the wide scope that I have on everything that has to do with how you deliver healthcare on the inpatient side, the outpatient side, and, you know, with practice plan experience too, the relationships I form with physicians, they are important practice partners with nurses. And that piece is particularly important in healthcare these days.

[B]

Absolutely. Well, I'd like to go a little bit deeper into your work at Penn State Health. So in the last 12 months, what's an initiative you took on that you're particularly proud of?

[C]

Well, you know, the last 12 months, a lot of that time was spent recovering from COVID Covid, that almost four year long period in time where we saw a very bad pandemic, you know, and we had nurses leaving the bedside, nurses not wanting to take care of patients anymore. And also we saw this uprising of agency nurses and the agencies really paid a lot for nurses to travel. So we lost nurses that way too. But really, really what happened with COVID is that it disrupted everything. It put health care in a situation where all we were looking at was Covid pretty much and how we deal with that. And quite frankly, we did things through Covid, that we wouldn't normally do in regular nursing practice. For example, you know, you wear a mask once and you throw it away and then you could wear a mask the whole day and then you could wear it a whole week, so long as you let it sit for 20 hours and dry 24 hours and dry in a brown paper bag. And that's such a small example. But the bigger message behind it is we had to change everything to cope with that period in time. So the last 12 months has basically been putting everything back together again. Some people call it getting back to the basics. I call it getting back to the essentials. What are the things that need to be in place for solid nursing practices that patients do the best they can possibly do while they're in the hospital? One particular impact that I'm very proud of is what we've been able to do to build back up our nursing workforce, not only in recruitment, but also retention and within well being. So I think if Covid taught us anything, nursing is already a traumatic profession. Think of what we deal with every day. We deal with patients that are at the worst moment of their not lives, incredible chronic illness, dying. And so it was always a traumatic profession. I think what Covid did was highlight how traumatic it is and really put our perspective towards what we need to do to care for staff who have gone through trauma and for which trauma is a daily part of their job. So the things that we're doing now, more of a focus on mental health. We have solace rooms now, so places where nurses can separate and go to a place and try to restore what's been happening to them. Even to the point where just the intensity of medical health and expansion of our mental health benefits that are afforded to employees. Just very proud of the work and the attention that's finally being given to that space.

[B]

Absolutely. Now, moving on to my next question. Workforce challenges remain number one for many leaders in the healthcare industry. How are you addressing workforce challenges within your organization?

[C]

You know, I think it takes a lot of innovation and creativity. Certainly there is the rebuilding of staff and certain things that we've done include can you recruit those agency nurses so that they join your organization? We have really expanded our ability to take on new graduate nurses and checking in with them, you know, in the first 90 days, you know, if somebody's going to make it or not or not. So to have those kinds of conversations does that. First, a new employee can really reflect back on you, what your organization is actually really like. Also a lot of intensity towards you. Know, trying to recruit more skilled nurses. We actually had our nurses participating in recruitment. That was particularly special because nurses are in this position where they know it's understaffed and they're trying to survive with what they have. But to put them out in the community and have them to try to recruit, to try to recruit new graduate nurses, the special thing that happens is that is hope they become part of the solution to their problem. And the hope that that inspires is wonderful. Over the course of a year and a half, we have gone down from 200 agency nurses to 20. We've gone from a turnover rate of 22 point something percent down to 9.3%, which is, by the way, top decile performance. And we've been maintaining that for several months now. So we are actively restoring the profession. I think the other thing we have to do is get creative about workforce challenges. And you hear a lot of people talking these days about AI and about virtual nurses. That's the whole conversation, AI and virtual nursing. But what about the other things you can do to help staff? For example, we took bits and pieces of nursing fte and we put into place staff facing chaplains so that the chaplains whose job it was to actually take care of staff were now part of our nursing workforce. We took pieces of FTEs and hired recreational therapists. These are helping our patients to ambulate. Ambulation is a nursing job on the floor, but other people can do that and they bring a special component of their own profession into that skill mix. So I think it's much more than virtual nurses and AI. It has to do with what are the other professionals that can help human beings on the floor and having nursing direct that care that others can provide. And it's not Only just your PCAs or your unskilled labor. There are other professions that can help a lot in the care that's provided the patients.

[B]

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for really going into detail there and laying that out for us. Now, before we wrap up here, I do want to know what the biggest leadership lesson you've learned is and if you have any advice for any emerging leaders in your industry.

[C]

Okay. The biggest leadership lesson I learned is that as we are looking for solutions, we have to stop chasing the shiny pennies. There are so many solutions. There are so many solutions out there, companies out there that are saying, we'll help you fix this problem or that problem. The fact of the matter is any significant problem is going to take a whole palette of initiatives that together will help you get There, we restored the staff within our floor. It wasn't just bringing in an rpo. It wasn't just going after nursing schools and hiring people. There were about 10 different initiatives that collectively restored us and our vacancy. And our turnover rate is now better than it was pre Covid. So it takes all of that stuff. Stop chasing shoddy pennies.

[B]

Absolutely. I love that. Now, do you have anything else that you'd like to share with our audience before we end here?

[C]

Nursing is such an important profession. It's important that we support nursing. I think as a nurse, I think one of the things that we also have to do is we need to introduce future nurses to the idea that hospital nursing can be a career pinnacle. Right now, what has happened is that you start in the hospital and then you graduate to an educator or a nurse leader or. Or something else. Or maybe you go on to be a nurse practitioner. And all of those are noble callings, and they are certainly things that nurses can do to expand their career. But there is something very special with being the seasoned nursing expert on the floor. Staying in a hospital, at the bedside, learning more and more so that you can guide new nurses, so you can guide new physicians is something that we need to concentrate more on.

[B]

Well, thank you so much again, this is Haley Rucker with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, recorded live at the Becker's 15th annual meeting. Michelle, thank you so much.

[C]

Thank you so much.