Lori has worked as a registered nurse, on the day shift and night shift, in the ICU for many years and has always graciously offered her expertise to all of her colleagues. Lori maintains her knowledge as a critical care nurse by staying current on the most up-to-date innovations to help care for the most vulnerable and critically ill patients.
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to unfold, Lori learned of other hospitals across the country drilling holes in the walls of patient rooms to be able to run the IV tubing to IV pumps located in the hallway. This change in the workspace would decrease the exposure of healthcare workers (especially the staff nurses working at the patient's bedside) to the COVID-19 virus as well as decrease the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) needed to care for these patients.
In March 2020, Lori discussed with her manager this change in the workspace and requested MMC make this change to the patient rooms in ICU to accommodate the relocation of the IV pumps to the hallway in our ICU. Lori's request was communicated to administration, the facilities department, and the MMC Command Center and within a couple of days, all 18 patient rooms in our ICU were equipped with a hole drilled into the wall to fish through the IV tubing, which allowed the pumps to remain in the hallways. Not only was this innovation an improvement to the patient rooms in ICU, but this change was implemented in other COVID units throughout MMC, which ultimately minimized the amount of exposure staff had to this virus and helped the organization to maintain adequate stock of critically needed PPE as other hospitals across the country struggled to maintain adequate supplies.
Due to Lori's expert vision into how a change in the workplace can improve an organization, our nurses were able to work in a safer environment and MMC was able to maintain adequate supplies of PPE. Additionally, this innovation allowed departments to be able to learn from each other and work better with each other. The successful implementation of this change in the workplace spawned other urgently needed changes to occur, such as the addition of negative pressure to all ICU patient care rooms.
The result of these changes, coupled with the innovative utilization of our staffing pattern (i.e.: nurse extenders and spotters) to assist in the excellent patient care allowed MMC to maintain the safe patient care we have grown accustomed to providing.