Nancy has been a nurse and leader at MWHC for many years. She is the current manager of the Nursing Center of Excellence, which oversees the Nurse Educator team as well as being the Magnet Program Coordinator, and leader for the Stroke Coordinator, Diabetes Educator, and Bariatric Program Coordinator. In other words, Nancy wears many hats and is involved in many hospital projects to improve the care of patients and improve the onboarding and education experiences of nurses at our hospital. Nancy is an encouraging leader, who trusts her team to work independently and supports their self-motivating behaviors and out-of-the-box ideas particularly due to the many challenges of the COVID pandemic. Nancy's guidance allowed the team to fulfill a wide variety of responsibilities such as Care Logistics training, roving skills sessions, and streamlined regulatory skills sessions to accommodate staffing and room availability challenges.

Nancy has supported her team in making as many virtual options for onboarding sessions as possible and helped her team strategize the onboarding of large groups of travelers and nursing assistants, who needed to be onboarded quickly and effectively to support the inpatient teams who were struggling with staffing challenges. During the most significant staffing challenges, Nancy did not hesitate when a plea was made to ask the educator team to be helping hands on the nursing units. She quickly brought the team together and was able to rally the team to provide as much support as possible during the times of greatest need. Nancy allows her team flexibility in scheduling to support both day and night shifts, understanding that the nursing teams are working 24 hours to care for patients. Nancy also encourages her team to strive for continuing education.

Out of her group of direct reports, at least 6 have their master's degree and 1 will soon be finished with theirs, and that isn't counting the CNS team who are under the NCE umbrella. Nancy is hard at work on her own master's degree, which she should be finishing soon. That is an amazing percentage of high performers and advanced degrees within a small department. Nancy has offered flexibility to her team to complete coursework and clinical hours while balancing the needs of the department and inpatient unit support.

Nancy has been a part of several successful projects in addition to our Magnet status. She recently helped facilitate the team for our Joint Program and accreditation as well as the Bariatric Program accreditation. She also aligns her team members with the projects most appropriate for them to participate in so that her team is engaged and empowered. Several of the educators have won Mentorship and High Performing Team awards under her leadership. She is now lending her assistance to the LPN model and CNA-level projects. To be honest, there are few projects that Nancy is not involved in due to her close relationship and oversight with the Professional Practice Councils as well as the importance of the educator team being brought into nearly every aspect of organizational strategies for improving care. What is most meaningful about Nancy's leadership is her ability to be compassionate to the everyday aspects of life that her team may encounter. She recognizes birthdays, sends thank you cards, and gives gifts of appreciation whenever possible to make her team feel valued. She celebrates kids going off to college or the military, births of children and grandchildren, and is open about her own joys of her growing family. Her door is always open whether it is to share concerns or brainstorm ideas. She truly cares about everyone on her team, and that team has become a family. It's no wonder there is minimal turnover in NCE; they all love and support each other! She makes her team feel as though this is the Best Place to Work.