Erin Roache is an authentic servant leader who believes in going above and beyond to serve her team with compassion. During the height of the pandemic, Erin also helped promote advancements of nursing through partnering with the hospital’s PACU and cardiac units by pushing nurses to function at their highest scope of practice. This initiative helped support the increasing usage of anesthesia in the cardiac cath and procedure areas. Now 100% of the nursing team is trained to recover patients post general anesthesia, aligning with ASPAN guidelines.

Most recently, she started an initiative to expand nursing practice in a new cardiac nursing and registered cardiac specialist fellowship Program. In this 20-week program, the two positions cohesively learn critical cardiac skills and build on the application of knowledge as a team. The success of this program will increase nurses’ presence and retention in the cardiac areas.

Erin is committed to patients and families through directly working with the Vascular Patient and Family Advisory Board. She attends monthly meetings and partners with them to improve the patient experience in the respected areas. In 2020, she saw a decline in her patient experience scores. By working directly with the advisory board to identify opportunities she was able to identify issues and hold the team accountable for improvement efforts that increased scores from 85.5 in Likely to Recommend to 96.3 based on NRC health data. Erin creates spaces where nurses feel valued, and she builds connections with her direct reports and leaders through walking rounds and “intentionally personal” conversations.

Her kindness is contagious. Erin recognizes that kindness cultivates a culture of trust, which is foundational for growth. She scored a Tier 1 unit for 5 consecutive years based on the employee engagement survey and continues to rate her high as it relates to her genuine leadership. Erin inspires her team to practice calmness and be effective problem solvers. Erin encourages mentorship in emotional intelligence and effective Crisis Management on her direct report teams through leadership development sessions to help grow her leaders. Inclusiveness is a valued component of Erin’s leadership style. She organized an open panel discussion with her team alongside her Medical Director to talk about disparities in healthcare. This created an open safe culture for teammates to feel heard, valued, and respected for their opinions. The discussion helped to build the team and it impacted a positive practice environment for all. To support the growing number of working moms who pumped after returning to work, Erin helped create a lactation room directly beside the procedure areas to provide a safe haven for her working moms to pump in between cases. By creating an emotionally safe place for new moms to meet their maternal needs, nurses felt safer returning to work after pregnancies. Aligning with her commitment to nurses’ well-being, Erin helped create a lavender room for teammates to decompress from high acuity cases and a cramped break room space, to help build resilience for her team.

Erin selflessly gives back to her community and profession through mentorship and volunteer work. She serves as a mentor in the A2WeXcel mentoring program and serves as an ally for all nurses that seek to grow in healthcare, as well. Erin received the Mentor of the Year award from the “Imagine Me Girls” community youth group. She achieved this by going above and beyond to mentor young women towards seeking careers in healthcare. Erin participated in several college tours and tutored middle and high school teenagers in allied health science courses.