We nominate Kerry Thomas for the ESJH DAISY Award. Since starting at ESJH several years ago, Kerry has been an active member of the NICU team. She not only provides excellent nursing care, but is an invaluable resource to less experienced nurses on the night shift. Kerry has also taken on two major initiatives to improve our NICU, both of which were desperately needed. The first initiative improved nursing care. The other is helping our unit to be more family centered.
Kerry almost single handedly developed our NICU skin care committee known as the “Skinny Dippers” which is almost entirely nursing driven, unlike most of our other quality improvement teams in the NICU. Kerry recruited and trained members of the “Skinny Dippers” committee. She has done an incredible amount of research, not only by reviewing literature, but by contacting and consulting neonatal skin care experts in the nation and developing relationships with experts at other local hospitals. Kerry and her team now regularly do “skin care rounds” so that they can ensure that skin care issues are avoided, and when they do occur her team ensures that the best possible treatment is implemented. She has developed “recipe” cards for the doctors and NNPs so that when a skin care issue arises, they know the best treatment regime to prescribe. The providers are extremely grateful for this resource.
An excellent testament to the work Kerry has done occurred in the past couple months. We had a baby that developed a severe skin condition. The initial treatment prescribed was actually making the condition worse and scaring was going to be inevitable. After evaluating the condition, Kerry made recommendations to change the treatment to one prescribed on her recipe cards. The treatment was changed, and Kerry re-evaluated the wound and made recommendations, as needed, every shift she worked even though she was never actually assigned to the patient. Several people questioned her recommendations, but the entire care team was amazed at the final outcome. The foot healed with no loss of function and very little scaring. Without Kerry’s guidance the outcome likely would not have been as good.
As of recent, Kerry has also joined our parent support group. She recognizes the benefit one parent can be to another and is helping our parent support group become the resource it once was. Having a nurse support the parent support group’s efforts is invaluable and greatly appreciated.
Kerry is an incredible nurse and is more than deserving of this award.