Jackie was a key leader in opening the new Palliative Care and Inpatient Hospice Unit on Simon 3. She capably delivers expert nursing care for palliative and hospice patients and their families. Jackie is an advocate of an integrative approach which is family centered, and multidisciplinary. She is a mentor, role model, and professional charge nurse. Jackie was part of the unit based hand washing initiative to prevent infection and increase our compliance with hand washing scores.
She has helped the unit become more compliant in appropriate documentation of care plans and patient education on medication education. Jackie works well under stress and never loses focus of why we are all here: To care for seriously ill patients and their families. There are few scenarios that are more stressful for a family than facing the end of their loved one's life. Jackie expertly partners with fellow health professionals and families during this most unbelievably chaotic and stress-filled time. She includes the family in the plan of care for their loved one, making them feel supported and at ease. She helps them voice their concerns, and advocates for their family member all while providing expert nursing care. She also nurtures other nurses in providing integrative care activities in their care delivery. Nurses look up to her for support, guidance, leadership, and her expert advice.
Respect:
As the charge nurse of the Unit, Jackie is always positive, energetic, happy, and is not only respected by physicians, nurses, and other allied health professionals, but also by the patients and families. She has expert technical skills and others know they can go to her for help. Her interventions always demonstrate reverence in respect to her patient's dignity and spiritual being in the forefront of any plan. Jackie helps guide new staff, has served as preceptor and mentor and can be relied upon to help them come up with solutions that they knew would work all along but needed encouragement to know that they were supported to take a leap outside their comfort zone.
Involvement:
Jackie is certified in palliative care and hospice care and has been an active member of the Hospice Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA). She is one of only 1200 certified HPNA instructors in the nation. Jackie shares her passion and commitment in palliative and hospice nursing by lecturing at End of Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) conferences across the state to improve the status of palliative care for patients by educating fellow nurses on end of life issues such as communication with patients and families, pain management, symptom management, and spiritual and emotional support for families.
While working on the Palliative Care and Inpatient Hospice Unit she has been instrumental in developing on line modules for ELNEC to educate health professionals, including nurses on the specialized knowledge and skills required to deliver quality palliative care to patients. Jackie is a role model for all bedside nurses; I have witnessed firsthand the positive impact she has made on the lives of patients and families facing serious illness or the end of life. On the unit level, she has been active in scheduling committee, vacation committee, PACT and has served as preceptor, providing mentoring and support. Her involvement and committeemen to Simon 3 and MMC is born out passion and commitment to the profession of nursing. She is beloved by all who work with her. She is committed to professional development and recently returned to school to pursue a graduate degree at Sacred Heart University for her MSN in Nursing leadership with a concentration in Palliative Care.
Dignity
Jackie is a nurse with compassion, who truly cares about her patient's well-being and takes extra measures to protect her patient's dignity. A small example of this is her conversation with a comatose patient I observed on rounds. Jackie reassured the patient her family loved her and was thinking of her. She went on to tell the patient they wished they could be there with her and they missed her terribly. Another patient had no visitors for a good part of his stay, Jackie made the time to sit with this elderly gentleman for an extended period of time twice a day, and encouraged other nurses to do the same with their patients who were alone. She is truly an example of a DAISY nurse. Her thoughtful consideration of a teenage girl's grief adjusting to the reality of her mother's impending death was demonstrated as she advocated for the involvement of appropriate resources for this young girl prior to her mother's transfer to an outlying institution. A consult with child life therapy was acquired because of Jackie's advocating for this teenager.
She consistently demonstrates thoughtful behaviors and therapeutic dialogue when caring for her patients and always considers how she would be feeling in this person's situation. The patients and families in Jackie's care appreciate her openness and a respectful attitude. Professionalism, kindness and connectedness are particularly important when dealing with the family's journey and maintaining dignity of the dying patient. Jackie is crucially aware how the behavior of those around the patient can help ease the physical challenges of worsening illness while maintaining the person's sense of self-worth and self-coherence. She is quite possibly the kindest nurse I know. She manages to help everyone on her team without drawing attention to herself. She is a gifted teacher and is relied upon, as resource for other nurses, yet never imparts an air of superiority, which is so important since most teaching takes place at the bedside in the presence of patients and families.
Excellence
Jackie's warmth and affable style are principle to the caring modalities that potentiate healing, and the interpersonal relationship between the nurse and the patient. Excellence in nursing is a balance of science and art with a healthy injection of compassion. Jackie exemplifies the skill sets that exemplify professionalism: excellence in communication, collaboration, credibility, and compassion. She remains positive and attentive to the most challenging of families while maintaining proper care for her other patients. She volunteers and steps up without hesitation to take in coming admissions and she is always motivated to increase her knowledge base and learn new integrative skills to assist in her patients' comfort.