Hezlin Yoyakki
May 2024
Hezlin
Yoyakki
,
BSN, FAACM
Medicine 6th floor
Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital
Houston
,
TX
United States
She leads by example, and consistently demonstrates kindness, compassion, courage, and credibility. Whether it is with patients and families, ancillary staff, peers, or her team, Hezlin finds ways to personalize every interaction.
Hezlin is an extraordinary leader and her growth and development as a nurse leader is an asset to our hospital. Hezlin has led her 6th floor team to consistent Tier 1 highest ranking in Employee Engagement. This Tier 1 rating year after year demonstrates her leadership attributes of trustworthy, compassionate, and ethical role modeling. Hezlin has solid competency in how to motivate her staff and exemplifies that through the many DAISY and ROSE Award recipients in her department.
Hezlin's professional excellence goes beyond the great performance of her unit, and this fiscal year, she led a hospital-wide performance improvement (PI) project to reduce the blood culture contamination rate for MHSW. Hezlin opened herself to continued growth and development through the learning and embracing of formal PI tools and processes of project management. She partnered with our Quality department on this PI project. The success of this project entailed the institution of blood draw champions, and Hezlin, along with her PI partner, led and facilitated multiple meetings to establish standardized tools and practices. Standardizing the practice of blood culture draw required her to use skills of effective communication, getting teams to work with one another, running organized meetings, and providing reports to her executive sponsor and various councils. This PI project, under her leadership, has led to a consistent decrease of our blood culture contamination for our facility. Hezlin was also the content expert in the 6th floor's length of stay project called Discharge Timeliness Project. Hezlin worked closely with the PI Specialist in Clinical Care Redesign (CCR) to implement the key performance indicators of 48-Hour Readiness. The launch of this PI project on the 6th floor could not be successful without an influential leader. Hezlin's preparing of her team and riding out the entire launch to post-implementation led to a 6.89 hour decrease from the time a discharge order is written to the time of actual discharge. 6th floor's baseline was 10 hrs. and 46 minutes and by the end of the fiscal year they observed a decrease of 3 hours and 57 minutes.
Hezlin Yoyakki is the best example of a DAISY Nurse Leader that I have encountered in my nursing career. She leads by example, and consistently demonstrates kindness, compassion, courage, and credibility. Whether it is with patients and families, ancillary staff, peers, or her team, Hezlin finds ways to personalize every interaction. She treats her employees with respect and is a constant cheerleader, recognizing and acknowledging the team on a consistent basis. Hezlin is flexible with her employees and assists with schedule needs, she is still able to hold them accountable when it comes to quality concerns or attendance issues without alienating them. She recognizes when someone is struggling, whether a new nurse or an experienced member of the team. The connection Hezlin has with our employees makes them comfortable asking questions, venting frustrations, or seeking comfort. She starts and ends her day with a smile and positive outlook, which is mirrored by the team. Her FY23 Employee Engagement Leader Index was an impressive 99, yet she remains incredibly humble, crediting those around her for the department’s success.
Hezlin’s 17 years of experience in her manager role makes her an excellent mentor to new leaders at SW. She will check in on them to offer her assistance, and recently received a celebrate recognition from a newer manager. He thanked her for her kindness, guidance, and willingness to share her own experiences. Hezlin closely monitors department productivity and quality. She collaborated with Quality, Patient Safety, and Infection Prevention, other leaders, and bedside nursing to lead a campus initiative to help reduce blood culture contamination rates across the campus. The expert draw process practiced on the 6th floor for several years has proven very effective with low contamination rates. Therefore, after evaluating contamination rates and processes from other areas in the hospital, a PI project mirroring the 6th floor practice was initiated and subsequently adopted across the campus. March 2024 contamination rates, including the ED, are 0.6%. She has also been instrumental in improving all quality metrics of 6th floor Medicine this fiscal year.
As further evidence of her worthiness of this award, I received an email with comments from a family member of 2 patients cared for on the 6th floor. He is also an active member of the MHSW Patient and Family Advisory Council. He is aware of the DAISY Nurse Leader award and wanted Hezlin to be nominated. He stated, “Hezlin Yoyakki provided exceptional care with a loving and kind spirit, a gentle and concerned attitude, and patience in meeting the needs of my sister and her family. She demonstrated the values of being compassionate, competent, and respectful, while being sympathetic to the patient’s needs. When my sister was due to be released, Hezlin went the extra mile and took the time and effort to facilitate the process after she was determined to leave without being properly released. She has that special talent of showing the patient and family that she truly cares about their health and welfare so that the time at the hospital will be the best possible experience."
Hezlin's professional excellence goes beyond the great performance of her unit, and this fiscal year, she led a hospital-wide performance improvement (PI) project to reduce the blood culture contamination rate for MHSW. Hezlin opened herself to continued growth and development through the learning and embracing of formal PI tools and processes of project management. She partnered with our Quality department on this PI project. The success of this project entailed the institution of blood draw champions, and Hezlin, along with her PI partner, led and facilitated multiple meetings to establish standardized tools and practices. Standardizing the practice of blood culture draw required her to use skills of effective communication, getting teams to work with one another, running organized meetings, and providing reports to her executive sponsor and various councils. This PI project, under her leadership, has led to a consistent decrease of our blood culture contamination for our facility. Hezlin was also the content expert in the 6th floor's length of stay project called Discharge Timeliness Project. Hezlin worked closely with the PI Specialist in Clinical Care Redesign (CCR) to implement the key performance indicators of 48-Hour Readiness. The launch of this PI project on the 6th floor could not be successful without an influential leader. Hezlin's preparing of her team and riding out the entire launch to post-implementation led to a 6.89 hour decrease from the time a discharge order is written to the time of actual discharge. 6th floor's baseline was 10 hrs. and 46 minutes and by the end of the fiscal year they observed a decrease of 3 hours and 57 minutes.
Hezlin Yoyakki is the best example of a DAISY Nurse Leader that I have encountered in my nursing career. She leads by example, and consistently demonstrates kindness, compassion, courage, and credibility. Whether it is with patients and families, ancillary staff, peers, or her team, Hezlin finds ways to personalize every interaction. She treats her employees with respect and is a constant cheerleader, recognizing and acknowledging the team on a consistent basis. Hezlin is flexible with her employees and assists with schedule needs, she is still able to hold them accountable when it comes to quality concerns or attendance issues without alienating them. She recognizes when someone is struggling, whether a new nurse or an experienced member of the team. The connection Hezlin has with our employees makes them comfortable asking questions, venting frustrations, or seeking comfort. She starts and ends her day with a smile and positive outlook, which is mirrored by the team. Her FY23 Employee Engagement Leader Index was an impressive 99, yet she remains incredibly humble, crediting those around her for the department’s success.
Hezlin’s 17 years of experience in her manager role makes her an excellent mentor to new leaders at SW. She will check in on them to offer her assistance, and recently received a celebrate recognition from a newer manager. He thanked her for her kindness, guidance, and willingness to share her own experiences. Hezlin closely monitors department productivity and quality. She collaborated with Quality, Patient Safety, and Infection Prevention, other leaders, and bedside nursing to lead a campus initiative to help reduce blood culture contamination rates across the campus. The expert draw process practiced on the 6th floor for several years has proven very effective with low contamination rates. Therefore, after evaluating contamination rates and processes from other areas in the hospital, a PI project mirroring the 6th floor practice was initiated and subsequently adopted across the campus. March 2024 contamination rates, including the ED, are 0.6%. She has also been instrumental in improving all quality metrics of 6th floor Medicine this fiscal year.
As further evidence of her worthiness of this award, I received an email with comments from a family member of 2 patients cared for on the 6th floor. He is also an active member of the MHSW Patient and Family Advisory Council. He is aware of the DAISY Nurse Leader award and wanted Hezlin to be nominated. He stated, “Hezlin Yoyakki provided exceptional care with a loving and kind spirit, a gentle and concerned attitude, and patience in meeting the needs of my sister and her family. She demonstrated the values of being compassionate, competent, and respectful, while being sympathetic to the patient’s needs. When my sister was due to be released, Hezlin went the extra mile and took the time and effort to facilitate the process after she was determined to leave without being properly released. She has that special talent of showing the patient and family that she truly cares about their health and welfare so that the time at the hospital will be the best possible experience."