Kayla is always a wonderful team member, but she deserves special recognition for helping prevent a bad outcome in one of our post operative patients. 

She was helping to coordinate care in the PACU late one afternoon at a time when multiple provider handoffs were happening. A patient I assumed care for had some soft blood pressure readings in the PACU despite multiple fluid boluses. She did not have any impressive tachycardia due to beta blockade and her exam was limited by body habitus. Kayla called me and expressed concern about the possibility of bleeding, given the lack of resolution with fluid boluses.

I asked Kayla to obtain a STAT CBC. When it came back with a several point Hgb drop, she helped to gather supplies for additional IV access and arterial monitoring, helped me contact the surgeon to express our shared concerns, and called the patient’s family member to update them on the patient’s progress.

The family was at the patient’s bedside when the surgeon came and assessed and made the call to return the patient to the OR. The patient had a liter of blood loss in her abdomen. As a patient with multiple underlying co-morbidities, if she had been discharged from the PACU with borderline pressures instead of getting a prompt workup and takeback, her outcome would have been much worse.

Kayla demonstrated excellent clinical judgment and flawlessly coordinated care to get this patient the best possible outcome. Although several other nurses on the team did a spectacular job of getting the patient prompt care, as the charge nurse that afternoon, Kayla stands out to me and deserves special recognition.