There are some people in this world who want nothing more than a quiet job in an office; sometimes hoping to never even interact with someone else for a majority of their work day.

Then there are people like Lindsay McKeever.

“I’ve always worked in really stressful environments,” she said in a recent interview following her promotion to the role of Associate Chief Nursing Officer (ACNO) at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence.

It perhaps is a bit of an understatement for McKeever, who began her career in nursing within the open heart unit at Miriam Hospital for her residency. Next up was the trauma ICU at Rhode Island Hospital, and then the adult emergency department at Rhode Island Hospital and the children’s ER at Hasbro.

“You’re getting the sickest of the sick patients, not knowing what was going to happen next seeing as it was a level 1 trauma center and there’s nothing predictable about it,” she said. “You’re always on edge. It’s just a hectic and stressful environment.”

But that’s the environment she thrived in for years, eventually leading her to be named the director of both the adult and children’s emergency rooms, a title she held until around a year ago. That was when the ACNO job, which had been created a couple years prior, became vacant. McKeever was tapped as the interim and, after a year of working in the interim capacity, she put her hat in the ring for an official selection search and got the job.

McKeever said part of the reason she was interested in taking the job was to serve as a liaison between the nursing staff on the ground and the higher level administration.

“Hasbro has all the makings, they just needed someone to come in and believe in them, and some who knew their nurse leaders had so much more to offer and would listen to them,” she said.

McKeever stepped into the role at a tumultuous time for the healthcare industry. In the wake of Covid, many hospitals across the country have seen a mass exodus of nurses; and Hasbro saw a similar employment gap.

“We had a gaping vacancy,” McKeever said. “I think they started to realize they could use their skills in places other than being hospital nurses…Covid kind of did that for everything.”

So the hospital went to work trying to figure out how to improve morale and job satisfaction for nurses. McKeever mentioned one of the primary ways to do that was to be more flexible with shift opportunities. She said they opened up an option for nurses to work seasonal shifts similar to teachers, where they are full-time during the busier months from September to June and then get time off during June to September (still with the ability to take on shifts during that time if they want to). Additionally, nurses could now alternate shifts between the adult and pediatric emergency rooms.

“Sometimes the pediatric ED can be awfully sad, as you can imagine,” she said. “Emotionally that was a way to keep them interested in pediatric ED, but also keep them emotionally invested as well.”

The changes, according to McKeever, have made an impact.

“With these solutions we implemented we’re back to almost 100% in the pediatric ICU,” she said. “We don’t really have a vacancy issue in Hasbro right now.”

McKeever, who lives in Warren but originally comes from Cranston (and whose husband owns Barrington Butchery), said that her career in nursing had always felt like a calling.

“I just love the feeling that we’re making a difference,” she said. “It’s corny but that’s why we become nurses.”

Now that she’s reached a top-level administrative position and isn’t dealing day-to-day with patients anymore, that immediate relationship to change might be different, but she finds it rewarding in other ways.

“Since I’m not at the bedside, I would say what I love about my current position is being a leader and being held accountable to making it a better environment for nurses,” she said. “Being in pediatrics makes me want to do more, and engage these nurses to do more so that they can be the best at the bedside.”