The team is under the system. This past year they have been extraordinary in going above and beyond in their dedication and commitment to our mission and our patients. In the midst of COVID-19, the team worked diligently to move to an online platform to allow onboarding on new nurses to continue seamlessly. While onboarding nurses, the team had to identify and develop learning modules and set up skills stations, while adhering to social distancing, to allow nurses who were not housed in patient facing areas to be prepared to support our surge staffing efforts. Additionally, the team also volunteered to support and staff unit needs. As the vaccine became available, our team (in particular one nurse - Ty Thibodeaux) led the direction for educational planning of vaccination. The team created modules of which were loaded into our LMS system for ease and supported learning for Moderna, Pfizer, and J&J. Ty also worked to support the scheduling efforts for educational support. Each pavilion had an educator ready to assist and answer questions for staff regarding the vaccine. When the vaccines were moved to patients, our team was balancing the need to continue to offer courses/programs that could not stop while also supporting the needs of the vaccine clinic. Throughout the calendar year, the team worked also worked as a team to hire on new graduate nurses to Harris Health System. Nurse leaders were busy helping to support the unit demands. During this time, there was a possibility that we would not be able to hire GNs. The team works together to screen 700+ candidates, interview and offer positions to help ensure that we had continued resources supporting our units. Furthermore, the team worked to onboard the new grads earlier being very strategic and creative in utilizing the GNs as support for our surge staffing efforts. Our team worked to develop education and support for roles such as psych sitter or being a sitter in general. This added a huge satisfaction to the patients who did not have their loved ones with them due to the limited restrictions to access within the hospital. The team also worked diligently in transitioning two new products to support nursing at large. One of the products was a full transition of our old LMS to a new one which involved a lot of education and training and strategy to adopt effectively and seamlessly. The other was the transition of our critical thinking product AssessRX moving to an AI platform called Jane Pro/Premium. The team worked at identifying a communication plan, education, guidelines and make the process for all new hires and current CRNs as easy as possible. This team has a strong work ethic, a compassion for doing the right thing, a dedication to patients and quality. They have been an exceptional group that I am honored to be a part of. They have had a can do attitude from day one. Individually, I have seen each of them go that extra mile to accomplish all the day to day work they are required to do while also bringing in additional support for the clinics and for our staff. They live the Harris Health mission proudly and daily and are so deserving of this award. Other examples include one of the team members making masks and bringing them to the hospitals for staff. Another member would fill in voids at clinics when she knew other team members had to work on onboarding the much needed staff to support the units. Two educators stayed late in a clinic waiting to see if they could offer the last few vials of vaccines they had to ensure they were utilized and not wasted. One educator drove to another clinic to support the unit and then happily drove to another clinic because they were down a person. Two team members worked all weekend to get the much needed vaccine modules ready for use on the Monday morning when the vaccines were available. My team does these types of things daily. It is awesome to see and be a part of.
The ENPG Nursing Education Team is a collection of highly knowledgeable, skilled and talented nurses. They never cease to amaze at how quickly they come together to address a need, develop a plan and create an end product that is professionally done. They truly care about the needs of not only Harris Health as a System, but the needs of those who are the Harris Health System family. You won't find a more caring and compassionate group of nurses who really do go the extra mile to ensure the job gets done, people are cared for and needs are met. You can count on them for everything from creating an education program to help new graduate nurses be successful to ensuring well experienced nurses have the knowledge and resources they need to impact patient outcomes. They celebrate the little things in life, to major milestones for Nursing and Harris Health. The ENPG Nursing Professional Development Specialist are a special group who will never know just how special they truly are and how they touch so many people in so many ways.