Kristen Long, DNP, RN, chief nursing executive at North Mississippi Medical Center-Tupelo
Photo: North Mississippi Medical Center-Tupelo
North Mississippi Health Services is a large, independent rural health system with eight hospitals serving 24 counties across the northeast portion of the Magnolia State and part of northwest Alabama.
That geographic footprint creates real complexity when it comes to building and sustaining a consistent culture for more than 7,000 employees.
THE CHALLENGE
Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the North Mississippi Health Services leadership team made a deliberate decision: They weren't going to manage their way back to the prior status quo. Instead, they were going to build something better.
Health system leaders set their sights on a culture grounded in connection, accountability and communication, with leader-team engagement at the center of that strategy.
"Previously, many of our core engagement and recognition processes were manual and paper-based, which made it difficult for leaders to stay connected with their teams in a meaningful and timely way," said Kristen Long, DNP, RN, chief nursing executive at North Mississippi Medical Center-Tupelo. "For example, something as important as a Daisy Award nomination required navigating a cumbersome handwritten process.
"As a result, we were generating only a handful of nominations each quarter – that's not aligned with a culture of appreciation," she added. "A related key challenge was that employee data was stored in multiple, disconnected systems, which created significant administrative burdens for managers and limited the real-time, actionable insights available to them."
There was no single place where a leader could get a complete, up-to-date picture of their team and readily spot meaningful opportunities to engage one-on-one – from setting up new-hire check-ins to recognizing birthdays and work milestones.
"Another fundamental challenge was the lack of visibility at the executive level into manager behaviors and best practices across the frontline," Long noted. "We couldn't easily see whether new-hire check-ins were being completed consistently, whether employee rounds were happening, or how recognition was distributed across departments and facilities.
"Without that visibility, it was difficult to hold ourselves and our leaders accountable to the culture we were trying to build," she added. "We had plenty of data, but no practical way to turn it into action or ensure we were delivering a consistent employee experience across our health system."
PROPOSAL
North Mississippi Health Chief Human Resources Officer Sondra Davis put it this way: "We weren't looking for an incremental improvement – we wanted a transformational solution."
When staff evaluated technology from vendor Laudio, what stood out was its ability to simplify and standardize the core elements of daily leader work while giving senior leaders real-time visibility into engagement practices across the health system, Long explained.
"The platform aimed to centralize and streamline key leader workflows – employee rounding, new‑hire check-ins, recognition, follow-ups – and turn our existing employee data into dynamic, actionable insights," she said. "For a health system of our size and geographic spread, that level of consolidation and clarity was compelling."
The technology effort was not just about efficiency – it also was about enabling the leadership culture the health system team wanted to build.
"The vendor offered a way to reduce administrative burden, automate routine tasks and surface timely opportunities for leaders to connect with their teams," Long explained. "It offered a win-win for our frontline leaders and their staff, helping leaders sustain personalized engagement at scale.
"It also provided a structure for consistent best practices, which was essential for creating alignment across hospitals, clinics and departments," she continued. "By reducing the cognitive and administrative load on leaders, we could free up more of their capacity to focus on engaging meaningfully with their teams and patients."
Importantly, the platform was designed to complement North Mississippi Health Services' existing HR systems rather than compete with or replace them.
"By sitting on top of those systems, Laudio could aggregate the data into one place with workflows specifically designed for the realities of the broad, demanding roles of frontline leaders," said Long. "It offered the ability to get more value from these systems, leveraging the data within leaders' daily operational workflows."
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
Staff started with a targeted rollout to nurse leaders at the main tertiary care center in Tupelo, but it spread quickly and organically.
"Leaders immediately saw the platform was making their days easier, not harder, which is not always the case with new technology," Long recalled. "Word got out to other departments, and within months we had expanded enterprise-wide to more than 370 leaders across all hospitals, clinics and support functions – clinical and non-clinical alike. That breadth was important to us from the beginning as we always believed this was a systemwide initiative, not a nursing-only tool.
"Leaders use the platform daily," she continued. "They complete new-hire check-ins, send recognition, conduct employee rounds, and follow up on engagement survey results, all in one place. The AI-powered recommendations from the vendor help them identify timely moments to connect: a milestone, a concern that warrants a check-in, or a team member who has gone above and beyond."
For those at the executive level, the platform provides real-time visibility into what's happening across facilities.
"I can see whether employee rounds are being completed consistently, monitor if new-hire check-ins are occurring consistently at key milestones and even personally celebrate a staff member's milestone from anywhere, which matters enormously when your teams are spread across a wide geography," Long said.
RESULTS
Since implementing the technology, North Mississippi Health Services has experienced three consecutive years of increased employee engagement scores and a national top-quartile ranking. The engagement and retention numbers tell a compelling story.
"Within the first year, our nursing engagement scores jumped eight points – an incredible increase, particularly for a health system of our size," Long reported. "The momentum didn't stop there. The following year brought an additional seven-point gain. By 2025, our employee satisfaction scores placed us in the top quartile nationally among healthcare organizations. That's the first time we've ever achieved that distinction.
"Then came a 7-percentage-point reduction in employee turnover, now below pre-pandemic levels," she continued. "Our employee turnover rate has improved every single year since we began this work, dropping from 21.7% in 2022 to 14.3% in 2025.
"We are now at turnover rates below what we saw before COVID, which is remarkable given the widespread national workforce challenges in healthcare and the particular challenges we face as a rural health system."
What's particularly telling is that the leaders who are the most active users of the platform have consistently achieved the strongest results in both retention and engagement. That correlation reinforces something Long and leaders believe deeply: When you make it easier for leaders to show up for their teams in meaningful ways, people feel it – and they choose to stay.
"And finally came $2.7 million in workforce savings from replacement costs avoided over three years," Long noted. "These retention gains have translated into significant financial impact. Avoiding employee turnover in healthcare – particularly in nursing – means avoiding the significant costs related to recruiting, onboarding and training replacements.
"Over three years, we've achieved more than $2.7 million in workforce savings," she concluded. "A lot goes into our retention success, and we know that the platform is a key part of that equation."
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