Kate Buehler came to our Emergency Department from a supervisor position at a level one trauma center. She stepped right up into her position as a manager. Not only does she excel at her job as a manager from her office position but consistently makes herself visible and available to the staff on the floor. She will take a patient load whenever needed. Kate steps up and picks up the shift to help offload some of the stress on staff and make sure that our patients are taken care of. Many days she has stepped from behind her desk to task, helped with triaging patients, and cleaned rooms after discharge to help with patient satisfaction and throughput.

Kate also understands that a work/life balance is crucial to the success of our staff, and therefore she willingly works with staff on schedules to accommodate personal lives. For a little over a year, Kate has also gone beyond the call to pour back into her staff. She created the act of monthly “Joy-Pop Ups” for the department. Every month she comes up with a theme and provides snacks and treats for the staff.

Kate’s concern for the morale and welfare of the unit is above all. She helps motivate staff by having a positive attitude in and out of the office about practice changes and new policy changes. Kate is available to listen to experienced staff when they are voicing concerns and she looks for all learning opportunities for newer nurses and techs. Kate has helped support the Mentorship Program for our new graduate Nurses in the Emergency Department. She makes a point to touch base with all staff, especially new staff, regularly. She will then take any concerns to the Emergency Department Clinical Practice Committee (CPC).

Kate has helped streamline the triage protocols of the department to help with patient throughput. She is working on getting a “triage tech and triage nurse” for our department to help with the patient safety. Kate has implemented the Vertical Emergency Department “VED” in our unit. This has drastically helped with our left-without-being-seen rates. The VED has also helped with staff satisfaction on offloading the lower acuity patients to one designated nurse. Kate has also streamlined increasing the department FTEs to ensure the staff have the coverage they need.

Kate is constantly helping the department in preparation of Joint commission rounding. One of her latest projects is maintaining infection control. Kate saw a need for the department to have new chairs due to extensive wear and tear. Within 3 months of being in the department, Kate reached out to management to get the project started. She advocates for all patients and is diligent in working to maintain their safety while in the ED, big or small. Some examples are making sure that our high-risk patients have continuous visual observation, per JC/CMS standards, and making sure that our high-fall-risk patients have “fall mats” to help with patient safety.

Kate is a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE Nurse), and she often steps out from behind her desk to help accommodate these patients. She also does tele-SANE for Faith Regional and Mary Lanning hospitals on a volunteer basis. She will go above and beyond for these patients to make sure they have a safe place to go if discharged. Kate is also a Stop the Bleed instructor for the community which requires her to empower the public to become immediate responders.

Kate creates an environment that fosters care and compassion by being there not only to listen to the staffs concerns but also patients and their families alike. Not only does she care about patient safety, but she is also big on informed treatment and will sit down to explain tests and procedures to patients and their family members. She will provide updates to patients, so they do not feel like they have been forgotten about amongst the business of the department. Kate has shown us to be amazing leader. She is the epitome of a Nurse Leader.