When Jamie Wiggins took on a new role as Chief Nursing Officer at Children’s Hospital New Orleans (CHNOLA) in 2017, he searched Amazon for works on hospital culture and ended up buying my book The Florence Prescription: From Accountability to Ownership. That was the beginning of a lasting partnership between Values Coach and CHNOLA.

  • Jamie Wiggins, CNO and Chief Clinical Officer, with members of his leadership team demonstrating "We play so our children can play."

Last week, CHNOLA became the first children’s hospital to earn our INSPIRED Award for Values and Culture Excellence by meeting all six criteria for designation. Their accomplishments include:

Employee Engagement: In 2017 employee engagement survey results were deep in the red (below average) in every category. By 2020 every category was well into the green (above average), and employee likelihood to recommend CHNOLA as a great place to work had increased by more than 20%. Indeed, the New Orleans newspaper has twice honored CHNOLA as one of that city’s Best Places to Work.

Employee Values Training: While the process has been delayed by Covid19, CHNOLA is on track for having all 2,200 employees complete a 2-day course on The Twelve Core Action Values that is taught by CHNOLA’s team of Certified Values Coach Trainers (CVCT) pictured above.

Defined Values and Culture: When Bob Dent and I were working on the second edition of Building a Culture of Ownership in Healthcare (2-time AJN Book of the Year Awardee), we included the CHNOLA Statement of Values and Cultural Philosophy as a great example of what we call “Cultural Blueprinting the Invisible Architecture™” because it’s one of the best we’ve seen. The excerpt below – We play so our children can play – is a quality one sees being played out in every corner of the hospital every day.

Community Outreach: One of the six criteria covers commitment to sharing with a broader community. Over the past several years, CHNOLA volunteers helped the Lake Charles community recovering from Hurricane Laura, and more than a hundred CHNOLA caregivers volunteered to work at adult hospitals during the covid pandemic. CHNOLA is now working with the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center on ways to help young people turn their lives around by living their values.

Congratulations to CEO John Nickens, CNO/Chief Clinical Officer Jamie Wiggins, and the rest of the CHNOLA team for this achievement.