Jeanna Grewe comes to work every single day with a positive attitude and a "can do "spirit. She is exactly the type of nurse any manager would want to be a leader for the unit, but also, Jeanna is a role mode of professional behavior and actions every day with every patient, family or staff member, every time.
Jeanna has grown in her role as a nurse leader in the PACU and is able to look at every issue from a critical point of view and fairness for not only our staff, but especially for the patients and families we serve. Jeanna seeks out ways to improve her performance to support periop and the units we collaborate with. Jeanna maintains professional discussions with various units and supports our Phase II area every day, but does it with kindness and diplomacy on the challenging days. She constantly supports the families while trying to negotiate bed placement. She consistently speaks other units "up" so parents are reassured when there are delays.
Jeanna is also a clinical leader in the periop area. Jeanna was one of the first staff members to get her pediatric certification and also precepts new nurses to peri-anesthesia nursing care. Jeanna regularly holds staff accountable when she is in charge to provide safe, excellent family centered care and has supported multiple safety projects though her CN III HAC work and Target Zero process.
As a unit scheduler, Jeanna has worked with staff tirelessly to help teach them about inputting their schedules into Clairvai. Jeanna works with all PACU staff members to help acquire the time off they requested or need. Jeanna will frequently change her own schedule to help staff members get certain days off. Jeanna helps maintain accurate records of request, times and holidays to always help support the fairest schedule possible. She also surveys the staff intermittently to make sure the schedule is meeting their needs. Along with this, Jeanna started the PACU "Sunshine committee" and does multiple things to help engage the nurses in the PACU. Jeanna is always trying to come up with ideas to support the PACU staff and make work a socially fun place to come to.
But what I am most impressed by is the caring and compassion Jeanna exhibits every day to our patients and families. This can sometimes be very challenging in an area that only interacts with families for a short period of time immediately after a surgery or procedure, however, Jeanna frequently goes above and beyond for her patient and families.
Recently an 18 month old patient and her family from out of state, presented at Children's Hospital Colorado's Gastro Intestinal (GI) clinic for evaluation for poor weight gain. Our GI physician's recommendation was for the patient to be placed under anesthesia the following day for an Upper Endoscopy and Colonoscopy. The family spent the night in Denver and arrived at the hospital the following day for the child's procedure. The mother, however, was unaware of the CHCO sibling visitation policy and had two other young children with her, father was not here. During the patient's procedure, unexpected to both the physician and the family a large malignant tumor was found in the patients abdomen. This patient was now to be directly admitted to the oncology unit.
The patient came to PACU after the procedure and Jeanna , the charge nurse at the time, realized the mother was going to be given news that would change the family's life forever. Jeanna recognized this mom could not concentrate on this news and care for the other 2 siblings at the same time. Jeanna decide she needed to figure out a way for this mom to be able to spend her time solely on this sick child, their diagnosis and all the new information she was going to receive. Jeanna immediately knew something had to be done to make this experience more tolerable for this mother.

Jeanna introduced herself to the mother and started to problem solve about where she could bring the siblings so the mom could focus on the new information and her ill child. Jeanna received permission from the mom to care for the siblings. Although it was late and the creative play center was not open, Jeanna called the volunteer office, explained what was going on, and was able to work with them to open the creative play center and provide a volunteer to stay with the siblings their while mom stayed at the bedside.
Once the siblings were with other adults in the play center Jeanna initiated contact with the oncology unit explaining what was happening and that this family had not expected an admission today. Despite the restrictive visitation policy, the charge nurse of the oncology unit worked with Jeanna to assist this family. Jeanna and the oncology charge nurse worked collaboratively to keep this family together until someone was able to come to pick up the siblings.
Jeanna recognized a devastating situation for a family in which they came for a routine office visit and ended up with a hospital admission, an upsetting diagnosis, and a poor prognosis. Jeanna's commitment to family centered care was above and beyond as she developed a plan to secure time for this mother to spend invaluable, uninterrupted time to hear the information being presented, along with the chance to ask important questions. Jeanna's nursing care and empathy reflects the heart of Children's Hospital commitment to families and patients. Although she knew she could not change the outcome, Jeanna recognized other ways to emotionally support this mom during her time of need.
This is just one example of Jeanna's amazing commitment to patients and families that she shares every single day she is at work. Jeanna represents what is best about nursing at Children's Hospital Colorado. Jeanna positively impacts the lives of families and children every single day as well as supporting the PACU staff at multiple levels.