ALL-ST RS JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH

Transcription

1 UnityPoint Health Waterloo team members honored for making our FOCUS Values come to life every day. ALL-ST RS JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH Front row, L to R: Paige Hutchinson, 3-Heart; Megan Eberhart, UMP Ambulatory Surgery Center; Sherri Mesch, Center for Pain Medicine; Tricia Naylor, BHGMHC; Jamie Cornwell, MHU; Julie Klein, Surgery; Beth Sullivan, Allen Foundation; Jordan Gray, Patient Access; Allison Lundy, Digestive Health Center Back row, L to R: Marsha Haugen, UnityPoint at Home; Tyler McCormack, Safety & Security; Marcus Proctor, Patient Access; Chanel Guyton, Patient Access; Louise Dawson, Digestive Health Center; Mindy Smith, Digestive Health Center; Haley Johnson, Respiratory Therapy Not pictured: Dr. Ravi Mallavarapu, Digestive Health Center; Luke Davis, Resource

2 S FOCUS All-Stars Stories JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH 2018 Jamie Cornwell, Mental Health Unit: Every day she comes to work with a positive attitude and a willingness to help out any and everyone on the unit. She treats all patients on the unit as her patients and doesn't ever say "This is not my job." She is always caring and compassionate even when she must set limits with patients. She will frequently help the tech working on the unit. Concerns for patients families are always addressed in a timely fashion. Jamie is often heard taking report for another nurse if they are busy with other patients. She is willing to pick up extra shifts and stays over to help her co-workers out. Jamie was a huge help when I transitioned to the Mental Health Unit. She always had time to answer my questions and never made me feel my questions were dumb. She recently became certified as a Psychiatric Nurse. Jamie has also been on career ladder for several years. Nurses on the Mental Health Unit often go unrecognized for all the work they do with a vulnerable population of patients. Jamie is a stand-out nurse on the Mental Health Unit and should be recognized for always providing the patients with compassionate care. Luke Davis, Resource: Luke always goes above and beyond for his patients. His positive attitude is very contagious and patients love him. Today, Luke and I shared a patient who was very depressed about his situation. Luke pampered the patient by giving him a nice bed bath as well as doing a shampoo cap. He took his time with the patient and the patient was more than happy to be receiving this amazing care. Luke provides this care to his patients every time he works and it shows. I know almost all staff loves when he is working because he brightens up the whole floor. His hard and positive work ethic should be recognized! Louise Dawson, Digestive Health Center: Louise does a wonderful job getting our scopes ready each day for procedures and is always the last one here finishing the wash and cleaning up at the end of the day. Recently we had a really long day and I was on call. I offered to stay and finish up and without hesitation Louise s answer was, "Go home to your babies, they need you." She also took timed labs without even being asked. Such a team player! Megan Eberhart, UMP Ambulatory Surgery Center: A recent letter from a patient: "What can I say about Megan but she is a bright light of awesome! My son was having outpatient dental surgery and she saw him at the PreOp Party two days beforehand. She knew him since he goes to daycare with her kids. She told him that she would see him on the day of surgery and be with him at the beginning and in the OR room. Boy did she come through. She was the one who came out to greet us before heading in the OR room to comfort my son and to walk him into the room. She held his hand tight and comforted him and told him all that was going on. It was great to see that she treated him as if he were her own son going into surgery. She went above and beyond the expectations of an OR nurse. She deserves this award for her caring and compassionate attitude toward kids!" Jordan Gray, Patient Access: One morning I needed to come over to the hospital to grab some things for United Medical Park. When I arrived, Jordan was in the middle of helping a patient with some insurance issues. At the front desk, Jordan contacted her insurance company and tried to fix the situation. When it was apparent that was not going to work, Jordan took the patient into a private office and spent over an hour on the phone working on the situation. As Jordan continued to work on it, the patient was able to get her procedure done without delay. As the patient was leaving, she gave Jordan a big hug and thanked her for spending so much time on her. Now that's awesome patient care! Chanel Guyton, Patient Access: A motor vehicle accident brought three patients to the emergency department and all three needed language translation. The language barrier made registration and identification challenging.

3 Chanel took a lot of extra time to make sure the patient's names were spelled correctly, obtaining consents, obtaining insurance information, all while communicating with the patients via the language line. It is a great example of Chanel's attention to detail, and her commitment to making sure we have the most accurate information. Getting the information correct to avoid any billing issues for the patient is just one way we can show patients they matter, and Chanel really went above and beyond in this case to accomplish that goal. Marsha Haugen, Palliative Care: Marsha began working with a patient while he was hospitalized at Allen. The patient was diagnosed with a serious advanced cancer. His situation was complicated by some financial issues as well as language and cultural barriers. In addition, this patient lived alone and did not have an extensive support network. While he was an inpatient, Marsha met with the patient frequently and formed a trusting care relationship with him. Marsha worked with the patient, Case Manager and Social Work staff to coordinate discharge plans. Even after he was discharged from the hospital, the patient felt comfortable enough with Marsha to continue to reach out to her by phone. Marsha was instrumental in getting to the core of the patient's concerns and advocated for this patient, even after his hospital discharge. With Marsha assisting the patient in getting his concerns addressed and questions answered, the patient eventually opted to go on hospice care. This was a decision the patient felt good about, and Marsha's care, attention and support of this patient helped the patient as he came to this decision. Thanks for all you do, Marsha. You truly make a difference in the lives of your patients! Paige Hutschinson, 3-Heart: Paige is a patient care tech on 3-Heart and has been with our team since November One day, she was helping care for a patient who was set to be discharged. She had completed his morning walk and came to talk to Megan and I regarding her concerns about him being discharged home. He was weak and very unsteady on his feet and the walk had been a struggle. The patient was adamant about going home though but had reluctantly agreed to home health services. A little later in the morning, Paige gave the patient his shower and as he was finishing he became weak again and had to be assisted back into the shower chair. Again, Paige came to find Megan and I as she was concerned that he didn't have a safe discharge plan. I reached out to our case manager to assist us with talking with the patient and his family again about making sure we had all services in place and also to see if we could convince him to go to a skilled nursing facility for a short time. Both he and his wife were adamant that he was not going to skilled. After a long conversation the patient agreed to add outpatient physical and occupational therapy services to the home health program. Paige is a great patient care tech and is currently in the nursing program. She is already developing her critical thinking skills and is a great patient advocate. I'm excited to help get her to the next level of her career at UnityPoint Health. Haley Johnson, Respiratory Therapy: From a patient: Haley came to assist with the discharge to get my grandma home via an ambulance so we could get her home with hospice care and to be comfortable. My grandma was on bipap in the room and Haley knew that if we took my grandma off bi-pap, her Oxygen sats would drop too low. She decided to walk next to my grandma with the bi-pap machine to the ambulance and help switch over to the home bipap once in the ambulance to minimalize the time off bi-pap for my grandma. When we were making a game plan, I could tell this was a tough situation for Haley and she voiced she was in a similar situation recently for her own mother. She was very compassionate and professional, yet it helped us to understand and remember that she is human to. Once we developed a plan, it was discovered the ambulance needed someone ACLS certified to ride along and there were no paramedics close by who would be able to assist. Without hesitation, Haley offered to ride along if the CARE Ambulance team was okay with it, which they were. Haley knew how important it was to my family to get my grandma home to get her comfortable. After talking with her supervisor, it was decided he would ride along instead. Once we got my grandma home, I am happy to say that after 10 days with hospice care she made a swift turn around and we were able to cancel the hospice care. So comforting to know how Haley would have done whatever she could in that situation to help my grandma and our family. Julie Klein, Surgery: We have a team member in the OR who has recently been diagnosed with a serious illness. When she began her medical leave for treatments, team members in all areas of Surgical Services contributed money and gifts for her. We asked Julie if she would coordinate gift cards, plants, meals, etc. She has done an

4 amazing job! She has mailed or delivered a card and/or gift at least weekly. Here is a note we received from our coworker about how Julie has Owned the Moment: "I was recently diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. I went from asking my doctor for a few tests, to having chemo a few weeks later. Everyone here has been so supportive and caring. It s been really amazing to see the way the department and the whole hospital have pulled together. It s surprising how many lives have been touched and you don t even realize it. Putting Julie Klein in charge of organizing the gifts, cards, and all the rest was true genius! She just seemed to know what needed to be done. My family and I appreciate more than we can say how much stress she has taken from us. Not only was Julie making sure that everyone got meals, but she helped me to think about my daughter s wedding details when I was not feeling the greatest from chemo. Julie is truly a very special person and deserves recognition for being the kind of individual we need and want in our organization and in our lives. I cannot say enough kind words about the support I have received from Julie and all the thought and work she has put into making sure my family and I are taken care of during this." Allison Lundy, Digestive Health Center Allison is an outstanding nurse and a great asset to the DHC. We received a thank you note from a patient: "A special thank you to Allison for your time prepping me and taking the time to visit with me while you worked. I left feeling so much more comfortable - like visiting a friend. Thank you all, I appreciate you so much." Allison is always adding a personal connection to her patient care and she is always making patients feel more at ease. Tyler McCormack, Safety & Security: I would like to nominate Tyler for Owning the Moment during a recent orientation. While in the first week of orientation, one of our new team members was contacted by Tyler to notify her that a visitor had struck her car in the parking lot. He happened to catch the incident on camera and proceeded to chase down the fleeing visitor. Our new orientee happened to have a rental car that day, so Tyler proceeded to work with the new team member to gather all needed information and help coordinate between her and the rental company. He followed up with her later in the day to make sure she had everything she needed. Throughout the entire incident, Tyler remained positive, calm, and kind. He truly showcased the FOCUS values for our new orientee and made a great first impression during an unfortunate incident. Stacey Mcglynn, Central Procurement: One day, my facilities Distribution Center was stocked out of an item for our OB/Nursery due to our counts being incorrect. I placed an order to be drop shipped the next day. Unfortunately, Stacey had to give me the news that this particular vendor does not drop ship their product so I would have to wait 5-7 days for the product to arrive. Being the intuitive person she is, Stacey called the vendor and asked if there was anything they could do. Stacey was able to place the order over the phone with the vendor and we had the product in two days. The unit had enough stock to last them until we received the product and Stacey completely saved the day! My hat is off to you, Stacey and the great job you do for us every day! Thank you! Sherri Mesch, Center for Pain Medicine: Sherri always exemplifies outstanding patient care and recently she showed it by giving a patient her shirt to wear after the patient's clothing had become soiled following a procedure. She could have given her a hospital gown to borrow, but instead she selflessly thought of her patient and how she would feel being in her shoes. It is an honor to work with her and nominate her for the FOCUS Stars! Tricia Naylor, Integrated Health Home: Tricia is a hardworking, dedicated employee and I am nominating her for her dedication to taking interns to work with her. She has never said no to taking an intern for a semester. Tricia realizes the value of having an intern work with her. She takes the time to train and educate them and provides them with many learning opportunities. There is a great need for well-trained individuals in the mental health field and we need to be educating and training people to continue the great work we do. I appreciate Tricia's commitment to training our future employees! Marcus Proctor, Patient Access: Marcus is consistently kind and compassionate with his team members and our patients and visitors. He even once gave away a pair of his own shoes to a patient who didn't have any. This is a recent Honoring You Marcus received: Marcus, if I could select every one of the FOCUS Values for this I would. In every interaction I've ever had with you and every interaction I've seen you have with others, whether it be

5 patients or coworkers, you shine. You are so kind, cheerful and compassionate to everyone who crosses your path. I don't know who hired you, but they struck gold and I'm so glad they did! Thank you for being you! Mallavarapu Ravi MD, Digestive Health Center: During a recent post call I had a patient express how happy she was that Dr. Ravi was able to get her procedure done so soon. She was miserable and wanted to attend state wrestling to see her grandchildren. She thanked him for allowing her to come in sooner so she could get to see them without feeling miserable. He is always thinking of the patients and helping when he can! Mindy Smith, Digestive Health Center: Recently, our secretaries have had to learn a new system and although I don't use it I have heard that it is a lot different and more time-consuming than the previous one. Mindy and I are involved in a unique project where we have patients come in for a Colon Class. We usually have two sessions with 4-8 people coming at a time and Mindy does a great job getting them scheduled. Today she was able to schedule eight people within 10 minutes! This was very nice for the patients, and although it is still a new system she does a great job serving our patients in a timely manner. Thanks for all you do without a complaint it does not go unnoticed! Beth Sullivan, Allen Foundation: Beth is an incredible go-getter. She has successfully organized Donate to Educate raising thousands of scholarship dollars for Allen College students, puts on a fabulous Allen College Alumni Reunion honoring the 50-year class, was instrumental in organizing the #GivingTuesday campaign raising money for OB/NICU/Peds, and strives to keep the Allen College alumni relations with the Allen Foundation intact among other things. Beth has also contributed with the Employee Giving Campaign, rolling out the first ever online donation option for team members. Beth is capable of taking on anything and taking it to the summit. Even though Allen Foundation team members do not have direct patient contact, Beth s work supports the team members, leaders, and students who do! She constantly goes above and beyond her normal duties. I believe Beth deserves the FOCUS Star award for Owning the Moment because of her enthusiasm and passion she has for her job.