Katharine E Schjodt, MSN, APRN-PCNS-BC, CPN, CPHON

Kat is leading innovation with a new therapy we will be providing to our inpatient hematology/oncology patients at Children's Nebraska. She started a new project to be able to provide Photobiomodulation Therapy (PBM Therapy) to our patients starting in February. This is a HUGE win for these patients as it helps prevent and treat mucositis (sores and inflammation in the mouth due to a lack of infection-fighting cells in the patient's immune system). Previous treatment for mucositis was just supportive care, which entailed any level of pain medication from Tylenol to narcotic PCAs and TPN for nutrition because a child would be unable to eat due to the severity of the pain. In addition to preventing/treating mucositis, it helps reduce the possibility that a patient can get a mucosal barrier central line infection, thus hopefully decreasing our units' CLABSI rate due to these mucosal barrier infections!

Kat has been working on this for months, ordering supplies, the PBM machine and sterilizer, forming a policy, and training staff. She even got feedback from our hem/onc patient/family councils to seek their feedback before rolling the project out. Kat is leading the innovation of new patient therapies at Children's and is the epitome of a nursing educator trying to make a positive difference in healthcare.