This nomination for Beverly Walti, RNC-NIC, MSN, CPNP, CNS is well deserved and long overdue. Beverly is well respected by her peers, physicians, and the leadership team in the NICU as well as within the organization here at CHOC. She has excellent interpersonal skills that she utilizes every day during multidisciplinary rounds while assisting to coordinate the care of our often fragile and complex patients. Her abilities are exemplified while advocating for our families, ensuring that their voices are heard and respected. Beverly frequently coordinates team and family conferences, striving for communication that is cohesive and consistent. Beverly provides an example to others of how to partner with the family to ensure that the needs of the patients are met both while in hospital as well as when transitioning to home.

In addition to the close attention that Beverly provides to those in the NICU, she also represents the NICU at the organizational level on numerous committees, teams and councils. Beverly is the chair of the Policy and Procedure Committee, member of the Professional Practice Council, Standards Committee, Palliative Care Committee, Education Committee, Code White Committee, Value Analysis Committee. She also is actively engaged in helping meet our organizational safety goals of reducing serious patient harm with her involvement in the Blood Stream Infection Team, Unplanned Extubation Performance Improvement Team, Wound/Pressure Ulcer Performance Improvement team. On the unit level Beverly is currently involved 2 infection control collaboratives as well. As committed as Beverly is to improving the quality and safety of the patients of the NICU, she demonstrates nursing excellence by encouraging other nurses to get involved in performance improvement and research via the nursing fellowship and evidence based practice programs at CHOC. She demonstrates her own commitment to lifelong learning and inspires the nurses in the NICU to pursue higher education as well as national certifications, providing them resources and support along the way.

Beverly, with her many years of nursing experience, often uses her expert assessment skills and decision making abilities to identify NICU specific learning needs, and arranges classes accordingly. When issues were identified with skin breakdown in the NICU, she arranged for the clinical representative from the manufacturer to come to the unit to provide inservices to the staff. From behind the scenes, Beverly without fail reevaluates the needs of the nurses, which improves how well the nurses function at the bedside. As the CNS for the NICU, Beverly has instituted various programs such as the Cool Cap Brain Cooling Program to treat hypoxic newborns which is resulting in better outcomes for this patient population. Beverly is a main resource for several other complex treatments in the NICU including care of the Extremely Low Birthweight (ELBW) Infants in the Small Baby Unit (SBU), External Mandibular Distraction for the Pierre Robin Sequence patient, Continuous Renal Replacement, and ECLS. Beverly is currently developing a Surgical NICU Program and held classes dedicated to surgical topics promoting the best practices for the nurses at the bedside.

Beverly is an educator to the nurses, patients, and families. During bedside rounds, she will frequently share her expertise with our parents. She is keenly aware of the anxieties and concerns of the families and addresses their needs in the moment, giving them her time and presence, and encourages the other team members to remember that for the family, "this is their forever". She will often pull in any and all resources to meet the needs of the family. Beverly displays sincere compassion to our families in end of life circumstances and is very knowledgeable of palliative care. Beverly has presented this topic numerous times at national conferences and has been recognized as a leader in this area.

Beverly is well-deserving of the DAISY Award. These are just a few of the examples that show how extraordinarily fortunate CHOC is to have Beverly as a member of our team. She is able to partner well with any member of the health care team at any level. Whether it is her ability to get brand new nurses involved in education and evidence based practice, organize classes and in-services for the staff, make important decisions in a committee meeting, or meet the family wherever they are in their often long journey with their precious baby in the NICU, Beverly is a truly valuable asset to this institution.