Role modeling compassion and exemplary practice is evident in Debbie's s daily work. For example, when Debbie was hired as a leader for the unit, she learned her unit was one of the highest utilizers of code violets and restraints. She educated staff about the physical and psychological concerns with restraint usage, provided CPI training to all staff and personally modeled de-escalation skills, which reduced code violet calls on the divisions from on average 17/yr to only 4 in 2022; while at the same time adapting a No Harm, No restraint culture to decrease restraint use to <26 hours in all of 2022. Other metrics that have made consistent yearly improvements under her leadership include: CLABSI rates, BCMA rates, falls rates, c-diff rates, sepsis mortality rates, and pressure injury rates. Just to name a few.

Creating an environment that fosters care and compassion is evident in Debbie's daily work. On any given day you may find her bathing a patient to improve their comfort or assisting with a difficult situation to ensure patients and families are cared for. For example, one morning I had a patient admitted from the ED. The patient came to the floor actively dying, and no family was willing to come back in yet after needing some rest from the ED. Debbie stopped doing the work that she needed to do to stay with the patient. She sat with him, talked to him, held his hand until the end, and stayed with him until family arrived. Debbie showed true compassion for our patients that day as well as every day.

An environment of trust, mutual respect, and ethical behavior are a top priority for Debbie. She works daily to promote and maintain such an environment for staff and patients. For example, she recently spent an hour with a patient admitted from the ED, when she learned he had a concern about his pain medications. The patient had entered our hospital through the ED in a pain crisis. While there, he noticed multiple times his full correct dose of pain medicine was not being administered. He had voiced his concern to ED staff, but felt no one addressed or escalated his concerns. On admission to the inpatient division, the patient told the bedside nurse about his ED experience. The nurse escalated the patient’s concerns to Debbie who then spoke with the patient. Debbie spent an hour listening to the patient’s concerns and ensuring the patient she would follow up to address them. The patient was so grateful and stated he “finally felt heard”. Debbie was very concerned about the incident for a number of reasons, but her biggest concern was it had broken the patient’s trust in nursing care at UH and she wanted to help restore his trust in us by following up to ensure the right thing is done each time no matter the area.

Debbie has always had her door open for questions and concerns and was willing to help from when I was in the float pool to becoming a nurse. She answers any question I have ever had and listens to whatever concerns I have no matter if she is here in person or on a day off. Debbie has created a welcoming, family environment that I am proud to be a part of and excited to be a part of the changes coming to our unit. She has encouraged me to finish my degree (BSN) and encourages me to further my education and professionalism here with things such as CLABSI prevention champion and becoming a chemo-privileged nurse. Debbie has helped me many times with nurse/doctor communication issues and how to take the steps to decrease the disconnect that can happen sometimes. Debbie takes the time to check on things throughout the day and helps assist with patients when I need her to. She has created a positive work environment for us and through that created a team atmosphere with open communication that makes difficult situations adaptable and easy to work through.  

Debbie is always working as part of the team to solve problems and improve outcomes. She encourages problem-solving among her team and ends almost every work day telling charge nurses to just call if they need help, but I trust you to make decisions. She is reachable and accessible to all team members to help solve any critical patient situation. For example, when Debbie was notified at home by a provider of a patient with a special chemotherapy device needing urgent admission to the unit, Debbie worked with other nursing leaders and the unit charge nurse to triage patients to bring the patient in safely.

Debbie is a very strong advocate for nursing at both the organizational level and the profession. For many years she was an active clinical instructor for nursing students. Within the organization, she sits on a number of nursing practice committees and is especially interested in nursing-based outcome committee work. She is an active member of the CMC and System falls, skin, restraint, and resuscitation committees, just to name a few. Recently, she has also been elected to be one of the nursing DRIs for falls to help lead the falls committee.  Debbie is also very active in promoting evidence-based practice and last year alone has co-authored three EBP projects that will be presented this month at a national nursing conference.  

Debbie embodies the UH leadership Promise. When a patient received a serious burn from a hot pack on the unit, Debbie repeatedly met with the patient and family, educated staff to ensure appropriate nursing care and documentation of the burn, reached out to UH risk management to escalate the injury, and worked with clinical experts in oncology and patient education to develop tools and a process to prevent future harm to patients. Debbie has also been a key nursing leader to help bring a new evidence-based chemotherapy device to SCC patients with liver cancer. Debbie has led the inpatient nursing team to ensure patients with the new device would be safely cared for on the division.