The Baptist wound care team spans across all campuses. We cover for each other in the event of absence, so we are all flexible to move across the system. Each person in our team is committed to participating in greatness by being part of system committees and teams. Multiple members of the team are collaborating in Excel. We are also an integral part of the care to the patients at Baptist in not only treating but striving to decrease the spread of skin related injuries as well as providing education and resources to the staff daily. In my humble opinion the wound care nurses here at Baptist are top notch and deserve recognition for their hard work in caring for the human body’s largest organ, the skin! 

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The wound care team at Baptist sees many patients across the system. This small, but mighty team of 14 nurses logs an average of more than 17,500 patient care visits each year.  They also teach at new hospital orientation, the RN residency, the LPN transition program, and are frequent guests at staff meetings across the system. They have a passion for their patients and the science of wound care.  The team truly embodies evidence-based practice and makes even the smallest product decisions only after carefully weighing the impact to the patient.  They practice autonomously, and physicians and nurses depend on their expertise. The team time and again steps up to make sure the needs of the patients are put first. There are no flex wound care nurses and no “extra” team members to cover when someone is on PTO or out sick, but this team makes it work, even if that means traveling to two campuses in one day.

Here are a few examples from the past few months of times the team has gone above and beyond and thought outside of the scope of their role to meet a patient need.  

•    An uninsured patient was unable to get home care but needed wound vac therapy.  The patient would need to come in as an outpatient and get their dressing changed by the inpatient wound care nurse. This would require a lot of coordination and documentation that typically is not within the normal demands of the job.  Once the nurse knew the situation, they immediately said yes, I would hate for the patient to have a huge inpatient bill just for this. Of course, let’s figure it out. 

•    A family member was very upset and wanted a team meeting.  Many of her concerns were around a wound; a wound care nurse was requested last minute to attend the meeting. They had to make alternate arrangements for their children to get picked up from school to attend. They went to the meeting, did an excellent job communicating with a difficult family, and received praise from the facility nurse executive. 

•    The wound care nurses are not paid to be on call on the weekends. One weekend, a house supervisor called about the condition of a patient. The wound care manager sent out a request asking if anyone could help. A nurse responded after rearranging plans to come and assist with this patient who was in severe pain with most of their skin in terrible condition. They thought it would be a quick response, but they ended up working almost six hours unplanned.  

•    A patient without good family support was planned to be discharged with a new ostomy and no home health. The wound care nurse advocated for several hours, working with the case manager and the physician to find a better option. They called the family and spent extra time teaching and practicing with the patient and family. They also arranged a way for the patient to follow up as an outpatient if needed for a visit with the inpatient wound care and made several calls after discharge to the patient.

•    This team does a job many bedside nurses struggle to stomach or handle, and they do it with pride and professionalism. They take care of each other and ensure every patient across all the campuses and BMDA receives the care they need. 

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These nurses work with an extraordinary interdisciplinary team caring for patients of all ages including our smallest patients in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to those who are in our Adult Intensive Care Unit who developed an acute wound requiring specialized care and assessment.  The wound care nurses at Baptist Health have taken additional educational training, and some certifications, to provide care to this patient population. They use their additional skills and knowledge based on their wound care expertise acquired through further education in this field to develop a treatment plan in collaboration with the health care team.  Often, when these patients can be discharged from the hospital, they still require wound care follow up in the outpatient setting to continue the healing process.  These skilled nurses care not only for those patients healing from acute care wounds requiring further follow up after discharge from the inpatient setting but also to those patients with chronic wounds for example from chronic venous peripheral disease.  The common theme is that wound care nurses specialize in caring for all types of wounds and work closely with members of the patient care team to ensure that personalized treatment plans are followed correctly to prevent future infection or injury and return the patient to the best physical and emotional care possible. You will note that I mention, not only the physical care that these nurses provide but it is also the emotional support they provide the patient, their families and other support members that must be included in this nomination and a key part of the DAISY Award. When you read how the DAISY award was established by the Patrick Barnes family after Mr. Barnes was hospitalized, they mentioned they had expected to receive excellent clinical care, but it was the way the “nurses spoke and touched him” that they remembered most. The wound care nurses at our facility offer that same great clinical care daily but it is the emotional support, encouragement, and the “tender touch” when providing care to an open wound that the patient and family communicate to us that makes the difference. I hope this nomination provides the committee reviewing with just a little insight into what I believe is an awesome team of dedicated nurses in a very specialized area of care that deserve recognition for the care they provide our patients daily.