Patti Skjerve is the Nurse Manager for 4N CPU. She has been the unit manager since 2015. During her time at James A. Hayley, she has not only been the unit manager for 4NCPU but also served consecutively as the manager for the Community Living Center (CLC). She managed this dual role with ease for many months, maintaining staff morale by ensuring her home unit saw her frequently while she had this additional tasking.
Patti has the unique ability to make patients, families, and staff comfortable to be able to express their needs without fear. In many instances she has walked into challenging patient/family situations; has listened and addressed concerns resolving escalating situations in a positive manner. She takes ownership for what happens on her unit and is a driving force in swift solutions. She worked diligently to get new workstations on wheels (WOWs) when computer problems abounded. She increased patient satisfaction, staff satisfaction, and retention through her efforts. She continues to work hard to get our unit new equipment and offers our unit as a trial location to field new equipment.
Patti has worked extremely hard to ensure that the unit work schedule is balanced and posted in a timely fashion. She shows care for her staff by responding to their needs and requests working to provided requested days off, annual leave and adequate staffing. Monthly unit birthday celebrations offer a time to celebrate and provide fellowship and camaraderie among staff. Laughter, jokes, and smiles are part of her offering that we truly appreciate. She takes the time to personally recognize her staff for going above and beyond. She frequently provides positive feedback and encouragement to continue a job well-done.
Patti communicates with respect, trust, and compassion. She cares about her staff and our patients and this shows daily in her interactions. When staff, patients or their families speak to her she truly listens. The staff can count on her to communicate honestly and provide ethical guidance when faced with challenging situations. She knows the policies and supports the staff in the decisions they make. We can count on her to back us up. She supports and utilizes the unit huddle board to communicate shared vision for unit changes and provides up-to-date
reports and feedback on unit level outcomes. When improvements are needed, challenges are addressed in a morning huddle and continued encouragement is offered to staff. As the changes create new data is shared in a timely fashion.
Our staff are supported and acknowledge that Patti takes a personal interest in developing their professional goals and assisting to achieve them. When asked for assistance by staff for guidance through challenging situations she is available, flexible and able to offer appropriate counsel and wording to diffuse complex situations. She mentors and communicates with her Charge nurses to offer them support and autonomy in their role.
Patti is always accessible and has an open-door policy. Frequently staff walk into her office and she always takes the time to listen and address their concerns immediately. Staff never feel rushed and always feel heard. Her follow-through is extraordinary and if it is important to her staff; it is equally important to her. She encourages the unit staff to think critically, clinically, be creative, have fun and work as a team. Under her leadership, the unit has worked together to reorganize the nurse servers, the workstations on wheels and the supply pyxis.
Patti maintains board certification as a nurse executive and encourages her staff to pursue certification. Under her leadership, 1 staff has recently achieved Medical-Surgical certification and 3 more are currently pursuing certification. She provides and encourages staff to take the opportunity to obtain additional education through VA offered courses.
Overall it is evident that Patti fully supports and encourages changes and recommendations brought forward by the Units Shared Governance committee. She takes ownership of requests to provide functioning equipment, patient care items and improvements to our working area.