Diane
Miller
July 2024
Diane
Miller
,
RN
BayCare Health System- Mease Countryside Hospital
Safety Harbor
,
FL
United States

 

 

 

The best thing about watching Diane teach on ICU Liberation is that you can feel her belief in the process and her intense desire to make care better for our most critically ill.
Diane Miller has spearheaded the ICU Liberation campaign for the last 3 years. She has dedicated her time, energy, knowledge, and compassion to the project. Diane first became enthused about ICU Liberation after attending an SCCM conference a few years ago. Since then, she has made it her mission to ensure that BayCare provides all our critical care patients with the best, evidence-based care possible. Diane has traveled to every critical care unit in our system to educate, observe, and recognize teams that are performing well. She has developed educational flyers, videos, and workshops to educate not only nurses but also pharmacists, therapists, and physicians. Diane not only assisted in developing but also led the ICU Liberation workshops across the system. She travels to SJH, WHH, and the BSO to provide monthly courses in all things ICU Liberation to the multidisciplinary team, while always taking feedback from the previous session to improve the next. I cannot stress enough that ICU Liberation would not have been possible without Diane Miller's leadership, knowledge, and passion. The best thing about watching Diane teach on ICU Liberation is that you can feel her belief in the process and her intense desire to make care better for our most critically ill. Diane mentors nurses in the critical care unit at MCH in both leadership and ICU Liberation, working alongside them to mobilize their patients and lighten their sedation. She takes every opportunity to improve the quality of life of all patients she encounters. She also celebrates every win that her team achieves. She attends Critical Care collaborative meetings, ICU Liberation education and steering committee meetings, Super User meetings, and hospital-based meetings to share the success of ICU Liberation and the work that continues. She utilizes those opportunities to share the stories of patients who have been positively impacted through this initiative, and it is often with tears in her eyes, and she recounts the barrier a patient or her team overcame. She is truly the cheerleader behind the initiative and constantly strives to improve the outcomes and quality of life for patients across the system. All of this is accomplished while Diane performs the tasks needed for her already busy role. Somehow, she still manages to be involved in other projects and initiatives, is present and available for her teams, and continues to teach CCIP and ACLS. Diane is the definition of going "above and beyond" for the sake of patient care. I am so thankful for Diane's partnership and collaboration on this project because, as a result of her extraordinary work and care, we have made significant improvements in critical care outcomes over the last year. Diane is the heart of ICU Liberation, and she truly deserves recognition not only for the effort that she has put in but also for the compassion and empathy that drives her.