We are proud of the scholarly contributions made by UVA Health nurses to the body of nursing knowledge. See a few examples of their work below, and in our past featured Spotlights!
Spotlight on... Changing Nursing Culture and Retaining Nurses Through Evidence-Based Practice
Read the full article about their project on UVA Connect
Thanks to author Sarah Klein and the Connect team for allowing us to share this excerpt.
One of the many ways UVA Health and UVA prioritize the well-being of our team members is through UVA-WorkMed’s Chronic Care Coaching, led by Elizabeth (Beth) Frackleton, M.Ed., BSN, RN, NBC-HWC, ACSM-CPT.
Frackleton joined UVA Health in 2014 and immediately put her master’s degree in counseling and her personal trainer certification to good use to help improve the physical health of her clients living with chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or pain.
All UVA Health and UVA team members are eligible for this free coaching — whether or not they’re on the Aetna health plan — as are any family members over age 18 who live with a team member.
Motivating the Individual
“People were losing weight; their blood sugar was coming down; their blood pressure was coming down,” Frackleton found, and she wanted to make an even more profound impact — so she became a national, board-certified health and wellness coach in 2017. “A lot of my clients are coming to me with work/life balance concerns, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like they don't have time to take care of themselves, or maybe they want to make a career change or manage stress. I wanted the coaching to help me understand how to change behavior."
Partnership with Frackleton's clients is paramount to that process. “People often know what to do, but they don't know how to do it,” she says. “A coach tries to find out what motivates the individual.”
Together, Frackleton and a client create a vision of the client’s best self — including aspects of physical, mental, emotional, professional, and financial well-being — and work toward those goals over an average of seven to nine visits.
Lasting Effects
Over time, Frackleton grew curious about whether that physical, mental and emotional growth would last after she stopped meeting with a client. “I wanted to show that health coaching is not only effective at making positive lifestyle changes. I believe people feel more empowered and more self-confident because they now believe they have what it takes to get where they want to be."
Frackleton met with Claiborne Miller-Davis, MS, BA, BSN, RN, and Lisa Letzkus, PhD, AC-PNP, RN, Office of Nursing Research. Together, they landed on an assessment of physical, emotional, and social well-being, and Frackleton began recruiting participants in September 2019.
Research administrators emailed the survey to clients before their first session with Frackleton, after their last session, and then three months later to check in on their progress. Fifteen clients completed all three assessments by the end of the study period in September 2021. The statistically significant results suggest nurse health coaching is effective in all three of the areas of well-being studied for those navigating chronic health concerns, Frackleton says. Click here to read more!