We provide a comprehensive onboarding program for both experienced nurses and recent nursing graduates. At Cayuga Health, our team of leaders and preceptors will teach you everything you need to know about your chosen specialty. Whether you are a recent graduate, switching specialties, or looking for a new home to exercise your current expertise, we will use our resources and tools to help make a customized onboarding plan to ensure you make a successful transition. Learn More >

Cayuga Health System unites two longstanding, independent hospitals, Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca and Schuyler Hospital in Montour Falls. Our two hospitals and multiple ambulatory locations have served our respective communities well for many years. Our nurses and patient services providers are committed to providing exceptional patient care and a meaningful experience to our patients and their families. By joining together in a cohesive health-care network, we are in a strong position to provide seamless, comprehensive, community-centered care for the many residents we serve across the Finger Lakes and central New York. Read our 2022 Annual Report >

Cayuga Health System nurses have been providing exceptional care to patients and families for over 100 years. Guided by our mission to remain the region’s leading healthcare system and the most trusted driver of integrated health services, our nurses strive to create a caring and healing environment that encourages a spirit of pride and excellence. With a focus on the patient, nursing, health, and the environment, nurses at Cayuga Health System utilize Relationship-Based Care (RBC) as the foundation of nursing practice. Relationship Based Care highlights the key relationships with oneself, patients and family, and peers and coworkers and is critical to human connection and healing. Nursing at Cayuga Health System is enhanced by our great culture and connection with our community. Together, with our valued partners, we employ our capabilities to equitably improve the well-being of the communities we serve.

Nurses and patient services staff put patients and their families at the center of everything we do. We engage, excel, empower, communicate, care, and achieve by focusing on patient satisfaction, clinical excellence and exemplary nursing practice, professional development, employee engagement and participation, shared governance, and evidence-based practice. We make safety our priority by building trust, leveraging strengths, leading with love, leaning in, respecting and celebrating diversity, equity, and inclusion, and balancing compassion with accountability.

Cayuga Health System has a strong history of investing in the professional development of our nursing and patient services staff through our professional practice model, which supports education, leadership development, and growth from novice to expert. Our clinical ladder, preceptor program, mentorship, succession planning, change management model, unit-based councils, and shared governance model all focus on pouring into our people. We also have a robust and collaborative partnership with several schools of nursing and allied health programs to support education, training our next generation of caregivers, and create a pipeline for future nursing and patient services staff.

Cayuga Health Nurses advocate and activate. We are at the forefront of healthcare policy and collaborate with local, state, and national groups to ensure our voices are heard and our needs are met. Ensuring nursing and patient services staff have a seat at the table and are integral stakeholders in the future of healthcare reform is an important aspect of our profession and practice. And our focus on quality and excellence allows each team member to function at the maximum scope to support empowerment and autonomy.

For over a century our nurses and patient services staff pioneers and change-makers and have delivered exceptional patient care and service to residents of Tompkins, Cortland, Seneca, and Tioga counties. At Cayuga Health System, we believe that hospitals are shaped by the people they serve. Our staff represents the best and brightest in healthcare.

I am inspired by the passion and dedication, and I am incredibly proud of the opportunity to serve and work among such a talented team.

Humbly and honestly,

Tali

Naph’tali (Tali) Edge, DNP
Chief Nursing Officer/VP Patient Services
Cayuga Health System

At Cayuga Health, we believe in supporting and valuing each and every team member. Our Professional Practice Model supports this. This framework serves as a guide for defining, overseeing, and evaluating professional nursing practice to ensure and support the advancement of the nursing and patient services team. The Professional Practice Model, also referred to as our practice framework, represents the nursing and patient services providers professional identity through various components that describe how our team practices, collaborates, communicates, and develops professionally to provide patient-centered care of the highest quality.

By the nature of the profession, nursing and patient services care providers are committed to lifelong learning. By offering high-impact programs with a reduced time commitment, Cayuga Health provides critical training and development for our nursing and patient services team, without compromising the time needed to do their jobs effectively.

Advancing your Nursing and Patient Services Career at Cayuga Health:

The Clinical Ladder program offers direct patient care providers a variety of development opportunities and allows NPS team members to build a customized career portfolio based on their interests. The purpose of the program is to promote career development and raise the bar of professional excellence among clinical team members while also providing recognition and advancement opportunities.

This program outlines flexible criteria for demonstration of excellence within domains of Cayuga Health’s professional practice model.

Shared Leadership

Shared Leadership is an interprofessional, collaborative governance structure where members share in decision-making that impacts professional practice and the work environment. Cayuga Health’s Shared Leadership structure includes councils at the system, hospitals, and unit levels. These councils play a vital role in ensuring the nurses and interprofessional collaborative partners have an active role in making decisions that impact professional practice. Through shared leadership, members are responsible and accountable for defining, implementing, and evaluating professional practice. The structure of shared leadership is part of the leadership component of our Professional Practice model, where team members share decisions that affect their practice.