When caring for others comes naturally, Alice is your nurse and leader. She is a nurse leader whose vision is not just to elevate the standards of nursing to a higher level but to inspire her team to go the extra mile when it comes to patient's care and safety. She is the type of nurse who will put all she has in all that she does.
Alice is highly motivated and very goal orientated. She was instrumental in demonstrating the necessity of hiring more qualified nurses to accommodate safe nurse- patient's ratio, provide safe quality patient care, improve patient's satisfaction and allow staff to keep our practice patient-centered. Her compassion for nurses to have improved working relationship led to a better working environment for the staff and to the patients they served.
What we, Alice's staff, like the most about her is her caring nature. There was a time when she helped a relative of a patient who was admitted to the ICU. Though this is another unit, she helped the relative visit her mother. The relative mentioned in her thank you letter that her mom passed that day, "Thank you. Through your kindness, it was the last time I heard my mother speak to me."
I have seen Alice clean stretchers, transport patients, remove trash. When there is a need, she is willing to step in and help. Her keen awareness on issues with the staff whether informed or observed, personal or professional, promoted better understanding within the unit, provided a consistent approach to teamwork. Cultural differences between the staff and among the patients become the strength, not the weakness.
Alice's best attribute is being focused. She improved barcoding medication from 50% to 98% and also improved moderate sedation quality measures through education of the staff and changing processes between the units and the pharmacy. She worked with GI staff to develop best practices presentations. Under her leadership, GI team won 1st in the Administrative Category for innovation in Harris Health for the year 2014. The GI no-shows and patient cancellations were high, with modified scheduling process, no-show and cancellations by patients decreased, and saving is tied to early disease identification.
Alice incorporated evidence-based practice in the delivery of care. She developed a process which patients discharged also receive educational materials on co-morbidities. She worked with pre-op staff to use teach-back method to ensure patients were understanding their surgical prep instructions. She also initiated studies on Normothermia in an effort to improve patient outcomes and meet different care measures. She presented a poster presentation on "An Interprofessional Approach to Hypothalamus Prevention in Setting" at the ASPAN conference.
Alice has been very supportive of her staff. She was instrumental in having the children of one of her employees to visit and made the children really excited for the holidays. Not to mention helping other employees with financial and emotional support and there are still others who did benefit from her generous nature.
Alice has the ability to be proactive, flexible, and collaborative. She has excellent leadership attributes. She leads by example, promotes education by being a CPR, ACLS and TWEC instructor for the system, and continually improves herself mentally, physically, and spiritually. She treats everyone with dignity, respect, and displays kindness to all. Alice's compassion is vast and has taught many of us the true meaning of compassion.