Barbara has worked in the Outpatient Cardiopulmonary Rehab Department at INOVA Alexandria for 20 years providing exceptional comprehensive clinical care to every patient she serves at every touch. Barbara truly embraces the Mission, Vision, and Values of INOVA.

Barbara is always open, flexible, and adaptable to ongoing healthcare changes and department operations to ensure the operations meet patients' and physicians’ needs. Barbara is also a key resource within the department for program policies. She has a wealth of knowledge and understands department policies and protocols for cardiopulmonary rehab very well. She stays up to date with policy changes and always ensures department policies and best practices are adhered to.

Barbara always ensures all patients receive the best quality of care and that they have a treatment plan that is individualized and personalized. She is extremely diligent at staying on top of her patient list and makes sure that each patient is following up with physician orders. She frequently communicates with physicians to provide updates and patient concerns and ensures Physicians are up to date on the plan of care.

One example of how Barbara has made a meaningful difference in our department involves the INOVA value of “Patient Always”. During the pandemic, our department faced staffing challenges which forced us to re-evaluate our department hours and clinician schedules to be able to accommodate more of our patients. One change that was brought forth and implemented was reducing the total treatment times from 90 minutes to 60 minutes. Barbara, as a team leader, soon realized this was not going to be sufficient time to allow clinicians to really connect and guide patients and their families on exercises, diet, and stress management, all of which are important risk factors to prevent future cardiovascular events. Barbara fought hard to convey this message to the senior management that this change was not feasible, especially when having to update/complete patients individualized treatment plans. Barbara also noticed patients were not happy because they felt rushed through their exercises and did not have an opportunity to ask or address all their questions and concerns.

She diligently presented her arguments during our department meetings and in face-to-face meetings with are department director. After much back and forth she was able to successfully convince management that in order to provide quality care and put patients first we must have the appropriate time of 90 minutes for clinicians to provide excellent care.

In summary, Barbara is an excellent example of a healthcare professional who cares about her patients. Barbara takes a straightforward approach to tackling those lifestyle chronic challenges patients face and gives them candid feedback about the impact of the patient's choices on their health very respectfully. She does all of this with extreme compassion and empathy by recognizing how difficult it is for the patient to make the changes. She has a unique rapport with patients and patients respond very well to her.