Helen is an RN in the infectious disease clinic for over 4 years. During this period she has handled irate and demanding patients in a calm and compassionate manner, facilitating mental health assistance in a timely manner.
Likewise, she has coordinated follow up with primary care appointments and communicated patients' needs to the pharmacy in an immediate manner. She has initiated hepatitis C and HIV education fairs, created advertisements for these events and procured incentives with many effects at the VAMC as well as during her off time. Ms. Garner willingly accepts increasing responsibilities for patient care.
Currently, she loads some of our patients' pillboxes on a monthly basis to help with compliance. She helps coordinate multiple appointments on the same day for many of our patients which is a time-consuming task.
Prior to the COVID epidemic, she was an integral part of our hepatitis C treatment team, coordinating medications pick up and education, labs and follow up appointments. During the COVID epidemic, she volunteered to be part of our COVID notification team for veterans. Her calm and patient demeanor alleviated many veterans' concerns when receiving results. We could not ask for any better nurse. She talks kindly to everyone even the physicians when we forget to do something! It's no wonder many nurses ask for her assistance in tutoring for their boards.