HSS made the decision to extend services to treat COVID-19 patients in an effort to help support our neighboring hospitals. As a result, there was a great need to prioritize education and support for our staff nurses in preparation for an influx of patients with various complex medical conditions in which were unfamiliar to our nursing staff.
However, Kim Weiss, our Clinical Education Specialist, rose to the challenge of demonstrating strong leadership and clinical expertise. She was instrumental in coordinating, designing, and implementing the changes which led to the transformation of the 9th Floor OR/PACU area into 9-surge, a critical care unit for severely ill COVID positive patients requiring mechanical ventilation. She stepped up with preparing and executing the med surg modules and training required and scheduling in-services for staff nurses on all shifts and clinical areas.
She showed creativity and innovation with her tactful design of a "prototype" module which simulated a tracheostomy to provide nurses with hands-on experience with performing tracheostomy care which included suctioning, dressing change, and trach tie changes. She achieved this with simple "props": a 16 oz paper cup, a trach foam dsg inner cannula, and trach ties.
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Like everyone knows, this whole COVID-19 situation was hard on everyone. We opened up an ICU on the 9th floor in the OR. It was crazy and there was a lot of unknown. Kim went above and beyond. As an orthopedic hospital, we did not previously see a lot of medical problems. Kim helped update policies to meet the new patient population. She also worked closely with material management to get us all the supplies we needed. She was there off hours to help educate and in-service staff. She made sure everyone was educated and comfortable with the new way of caring for our patients.