Keri Nasenbeny
October 2022
Keri
Nasenbeny
,
MHA, BSN, RN
Patient Care Services
University of Washington Medical Center
Seattle
,
WA
United States
Keri embodies authentic leadership through her unique and powerful gift of listening to understand. Through daily rounding and becoming a regular, accessible presence, Keri has created lasting, meaningful relationships with leaders, staff, and providers throughout the organization.
We would like to honor Keri Nasenbeny with the DAISY Nurse Leader Award for her outstanding, career-spanning contributions to UW Medical Center. The DAISY Nurse Leader Award is given only to those leaders “who create an environment where compassionate, skillful care thrives.” There is no more deserving recipient of such an award than Keri. Throughout her 23 years at UW Medical Center, Keri has dedicated herself to nursing excellence and patient and family-centered care. Keri embodies authentic leadership through her unique and powerful gift of listening to understand. Through daily rounding and becoming a regular, accessible presence, Keri has created lasting, meaningful relationships with leaders, staff, and providers throughout the organization.
Her visionary leadership style and devotion to creating an exceptional patient care experience led Keri to advance the Patient and Family Centered Care approach, for example, welcoming family member presence at Code Blue events, and the creation of the Family Support Volunteer role in the ICUs at Montlake. Her deep passion for supporting the psychological health and well-being of the interdisciplinary team resulted in the creation of the Care4U Program at UWMC just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. (And the impact of this program over the last several years really illustrated how Keri was ahead of her time in, thankfully, anticipating the needs of our struggling healthcare teams.)
Throughout her tenure, Keri has led her team on the NW Campus with transparency, grace, kindness, and strength. She has never been afraid to vulnerably share her own humanity in effort to offer true connection to staff. In the early weeks of March 2020, when fear was rampant, and COVID ravaged our city, Keri bravely gathered 70 staff members of a particularly impacted unit in the hall and said, “We’ll get through this together. We don’t know everything that we need to be doing yet, but we’ll let you know everything as we learn it. You are not alone. We’ll pay you if you get sick or if you must care for your family. And we’ll gown up beside you to help care for these patients if needed.” That day, when relief washed over the team, and we heard laughter for the first time in 2 weeks, Keri demonstrated the power of transparent leadership and the true value of people feeling seen and heard.
Keri has developed a strong, smart, and engaged Leadership Team. She has championed staff safety, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and she leaves our team with greater access to the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to provide safe and effective care. Working with her and under her leadership has been one of the greatest honors of our own careers. Congratulations, Keri, on your DAISY Nurse Leader Award!
Her visionary leadership style and devotion to creating an exceptional patient care experience led Keri to advance the Patient and Family Centered Care approach, for example, welcoming family member presence at Code Blue events, and the creation of the Family Support Volunteer role in the ICUs at Montlake. Her deep passion for supporting the psychological health and well-being of the interdisciplinary team resulted in the creation of the Care4U Program at UWMC just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. (And the impact of this program over the last several years really illustrated how Keri was ahead of her time in, thankfully, anticipating the needs of our struggling healthcare teams.)
Throughout her tenure, Keri has led her team on the NW Campus with transparency, grace, kindness, and strength. She has never been afraid to vulnerably share her own humanity in effort to offer true connection to staff. In the early weeks of March 2020, when fear was rampant, and COVID ravaged our city, Keri bravely gathered 70 staff members of a particularly impacted unit in the hall and said, “We’ll get through this together. We don’t know everything that we need to be doing yet, but we’ll let you know everything as we learn it. You are not alone. We’ll pay you if you get sick or if you must care for your family. And we’ll gown up beside you to help care for these patients if needed.” That day, when relief washed over the team, and we heard laughter for the first time in 2 weeks, Keri demonstrated the power of transparent leadership and the true value of people feeling seen and heard.
Keri has developed a strong, smart, and engaged Leadership Team. She has championed staff safety, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and she leaves our team with greater access to the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to provide safe and effective care. Working with her and under her leadership has been one of the greatest honors of our own careers. Congratulations, Keri, on your DAISY Nurse Leader Award!