Christine Westphal
November 2021
Christine
Westphal
,
MSN, RN-BC
Perioperative Areas
Advocate Christ Medical Center
Oak Lawn
,
IL
United States
Christine is the Primary Investigator of the study and did most of the writing for the protocol and other IRB required paperwork.
Christine Westphal is a DAISY Nurse through and through. She exemplifies all the characteristics outlined in the DAISY Leader criteria. I can attest to this having worked with Christine for five years on the Nursing Research Committee and while collaborating with her on her many outstanding research, evidence-based practice, and quality improvement projects. Prior to COVID, Christine worked on at least three huge initiatives. Despite COVID she held onto the projects and did whatever she could with them, and they are all thriving now. This fact demonstrates her tenacity, perseverance, and unending passion and energy for doing what is best and right. I hope my narrative describing three of her projects does her justice and demonstrates how she indeed meets all of the criteria.
When she noticed an increased use of local anesthetics, she recognized the potential for increased risk for patients to experience a rare, but very serious anesthetic reaction called Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity (LAST). She collaborated with pharmacy and performed a literature review to determine the best course of action. Following professional standards and guidelines, she ensured periop area nurses had the information, education, and medications readily available to them to recognize and treat LAST if it ever happened. Luckily she was proactive because during the education phase of the project one of the PACU nurses saw the signs of LAST, used the protocol and medications Christine’s program provided, and was able to prevent patient harm!
At the same time as her LAST project, she and some other nurses found increasing rates of surgical site infection (SSI) for some spinal surgery patients. They did a chart review and realized the patients with SSIs were those patients who were hypothermic during surgery. Instead of doing a quality improvement project, they opted to go big. They wrote a protocol for a random control trial to test the efficacy of adding a simple thermo-reflective blanket to the patients’ warming regime to try and reduce hypothermia, and SSIs. Christine is the Primary Investigator of the study and did most of the writing for the protocol and other IRB required paperwork. She does all of the interaction with the IRB for the study oversight. She created the consents and got them translated. She helped organize all the forms and processes and has trained the nurses to standardize the study process (according to the protocol). The study is currently underway and will hopefully provide some publishable results!
As the CPS for her areas, she was also in charge of making sure the nurses understood and complied with a lot of regulatory processes such as handwashing, obstructive sleep apnea screening, etc. Many of these processes had low rates of compliance and she recognized that doing the same thing over and over was not getting them anywhere. In true Christine fashion, she did a literature search (she does a literature search for everything and it is awesome!) She found some innovative ways to change the culture and try new ways of improving their compliance. She started an official “unit champion” program with guidelines for the nurses involved. The unit champion nurses were given the authority and discretion to complete the audits for compliance. If their audits showed below-goal compliance, the unit champions were also given authority and discretion to come up with an improvement plan, write up the improvement plan for leadership/quality approval, to implement the improvement plan, and evaluate the impact of the improvement plan. Of course, Christine supports them through the process. Her program has had amazing results with 11 out of 15 non-compliant audit areas moving to over 90% compliance in less than one year!
I hope these three stories demonstrate Christine’s committed to helping, using evidence-based practice, and being an open, honest, professional communicator. She absolutely makes a huge impact for us at ACMC. She is extremely professional, trustworthy, accountable, and fair; she is an inspiration and a motivator. She is an outstanding mentor and she is brilliant. She is humble about her brilliance, which makes her very accessible to all levels and abilities of nurses. She absolutely contributes to the growth and development of nurses in her direct areas and beyond. She is a DAISY Leader through and through!
When she noticed an increased use of local anesthetics, she recognized the potential for increased risk for patients to experience a rare, but very serious anesthetic reaction called Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity (LAST). She collaborated with pharmacy and performed a literature review to determine the best course of action. Following professional standards and guidelines, she ensured periop area nurses had the information, education, and medications readily available to them to recognize and treat LAST if it ever happened. Luckily she was proactive because during the education phase of the project one of the PACU nurses saw the signs of LAST, used the protocol and medications Christine’s program provided, and was able to prevent patient harm!
At the same time as her LAST project, she and some other nurses found increasing rates of surgical site infection (SSI) for some spinal surgery patients. They did a chart review and realized the patients with SSIs were those patients who were hypothermic during surgery. Instead of doing a quality improvement project, they opted to go big. They wrote a protocol for a random control trial to test the efficacy of adding a simple thermo-reflective blanket to the patients’ warming regime to try and reduce hypothermia, and SSIs. Christine is the Primary Investigator of the study and did most of the writing for the protocol and other IRB required paperwork. She does all of the interaction with the IRB for the study oversight. She created the consents and got them translated. She helped organize all the forms and processes and has trained the nurses to standardize the study process (according to the protocol). The study is currently underway and will hopefully provide some publishable results!
As the CPS for her areas, she was also in charge of making sure the nurses understood and complied with a lot of regulatory processes such as handwashing, obstructive sleep apnea screening, etc. Many of these processes had low rates of compliance and she recognized that doing the same thing over and over was not getting them anywhere. In true Christine fashion, she did a literature search (she does a literature search for everything and it is awesome!) She found some innovative ways to change the culture and try new ways of improving their compliance. She started an official “unit champion” program with guidelines for the nurses involved. The unit champion nurses were given the authority and discretion to complete the audits for compliance. If their audits showed below-goal compliance, the unit champions were also given authority and discretion to come up with an improvement plan, write up the improvement plan for leadership/quality approval, to implement the improvement plan, and evaluate the impact of the improvement plan. Of course, Christine supports them through the process. Her program has had amazing results with 11 out of 15 non-compliant audit areas moving to over 90% compliance in less than one year!
I hope these three stories demonstrate Christine’s committed to helping, using evidence-based practice, and being an open, honest, professional communicator. She absolutely makes a huge impact for us at ACMC. She is extremely professional, trustworthy, accountable, and fair; she is an inspiration and a motivator. She is an outstanding mentor and she is brilliant. She is humble about her brilliance, which makes her very accessible to all levels and abilities of nurses. She absolutely contributes to the growth and development of nurses in her direct areas and beyond. She is a DAISY Leader through and through!