Oftentimes we as people chose to disengage and find ways to self-comfort during times that are both difficult and challenging. The last two years have proven to be more than just challenging and difficult to frontline staff across all industries throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic.  However, there are those people who choose to engage, lift up, and inspire—despite facing burnout, emotional trials, and frustration.  Loran “Paige” Strehl is one of these valuable and rare individuals that has not only risen to surmount the various barriers and complications facing both the hospital and nursing in general—but looked for ways to overcome barriers arising in her home Unit—the Pediatric Cardiac Transitional Care Unit—but also to support the experiences of our patients, their families, and the entire healthcare team through strong advocacy, policy changes, and championing positive changes to problems facing her team.  
    
Considering a Moderation Sedation policy change, Paige worked tirelessly with multiple levels of leadership and peer staff. She created a new plan that supported all nursing within the PCTCU to be educated on Moderate Sedation skills, policies, and guidelines to be in line with the requirements.  She created an education plan, and timeline, and worked many days on this project all while still working her normal hours and shifts.  Her efforts allowed our team to then go back to the same high level of patient-centered care—but without straining ICU resources, delaying procedures, and to do so within the safety guidelines of the Hospital. She worked within our team educating all staff; collaborated with Leadership and Medical Providers to better facilitate the new approach to patient-centered care; and helped re-write the policy within the Unit to rapidly complete this change in a matter of months! It was an incredible feat. 

Beyond just changing policies and championing her peers, Paige is a person who can empathize and transform a patient and their family's experience from one of despair and pain to one of hope for the future with dreams of a different tomorrow. Not only have I heard such from our families, but I have seen it happen. We had a patient on our unit with a complicated skin issue. One evening, the father of the patient called to the Unit and wanted to bring up siblings and a grandparent to the floor to see the infant. Due to a miscommunication, authorization had not been entered into the visitor system nor had it been communicated to nursing. Paige, who was in charge that day was advised of the situation, was able to resolve the miscommunication and allowed the family to the bedside so the family could be together.  She was able to provide this family with a chance to be together in peace and hope. I had the opportunity to speak with the father the next day.  He spoke specifically about Paige and a handful of other nurses who were exemplars of what it meant to be a Nurse of the highest caliber—and how lucky he was to have them caring for his child.  I hope that these examples help illustrate why Paige is a DAISY Nurse and how lucky the PCTCU and UCSF are to have nurses like her here!