Heather Booker has become an invaluable partner to the Community Residential Care (CRC) team here at the VA. As a PACT nurse she is our go-to contact with questions or concerns that may arise for veterans that we share. She is incredibly approachable and will go above and beyond to help us to provide the best care to our veterans. Heather is very easy to contact, will get back to us with answers every time, and always puts the veterans first. Veterans that we share are almost always geriatric and diagnosed with Serious Mental Illness (SMI). Due to these factors, the veterans may be less than forthcoming with current issues/concerns or answer questions in a manner you or I might. She will follow up on any questions or gaps that may be left following the appointments with families, CRC community staff, and/or members of our VA CRC team. So many of the veterans we share have been conditioned to believe their medical needs are not important, having concerns passed over by some providers as they are “Mental Health” veterans.

Heather always works to make our veterans feel supported and makes a conscious effort to make each veteran feel like the most important part of her day. We have been told by our community partners how easy she is to talk to and how approachable they feel she is. Veterans note that they feel as a nurse she “really listened” and will follow up on concerns. If we could collaborate with Heather on every veteran we serve, we gladly would!

P- Heather works closely with the CRC team to help facilitate and coordinate care for CRC Veterans we share. Heather works as a bridge between CRC and the provider, assisting with medication renewals, appointments, and ongoing coordination of care by communicating with CRC providers and CRC staff regarding a Veteran's needs.

E- Heather shares a level of professionalism that allows her to get her job done in a timely manner, but also not lose the human emotions associated with the job she does. She will jump in headfirst to any problem we may bring to her and completely close the loop before ending communication with us. Veterans and caretakers that we share with Heather also share that they enjoy face to face and telephone follow up with her.

T- Not only can we all agree that we completely trust Heather’s clinical judgement, we trust that if Heather is not sure of something she will get back to us once she has looked into it personally. CRC Homeowners and staff that we work with all trust her reports to/from the doctors and feel comfortable asking questions that they might not be able to ask the doctors. Heather makes herself available and time and time again has given appropriate attention to each need presented to her, growing veteran’s trust of not only us, but also the VA as a whole.Working with the SMI population can be challenging and often take patience and time to build rapport. Heather shows significant compassion, patience, and kindness when working with CRC Veterans. Heather can always be relied on to assist CRC case managers with routine tasks as well as emergent issues that arise. CRC case managers depend on her dedication and reliability.

A-Heather routinely goes above and beyond when assisting CRC team members and CRC Veterans. At the end of the week, Heather has reached out to CRC team members to inquire about any outstanding issues or needs that she can assist with and take care of before the weekend. A recent example of Heather’s ambition and dedication to the work she does occurred when a Veteran cancelled his upcoming appointment and stated that he did not want to have the appointment rescheduled and the Veteran stated he no longer needed to see the primary care doctor. Heather immediately reached out to the CRC case manager to express concerns for the Veteran, not only about rescheduling the appointment, but for the Veteran’s safety. The CRC case manager was able to reach out to the Veteran to further assess safety.

L-Heather is a true leader within the primary care team. Her accessibility, kindness, consistency, and follow through makes the work she does the gold standard. Heather never shies away from difficult situation and when she doesn’t know the answer she always will help us find the answer. When working with other PACT nurses we have often had Heather provide coverage for time off and she treats veterans not on her caseload with the same time and attention of the ones that are.

S-Numerous times Heather has helped us with last minute medication needs. Ensuring that veterans do not miss any medication administrations. This can include a veteran discharging from an outside hospital with a script they cannot afford to pay for if not filled at VA (which requires a VA doctor to read discharge summaries and rewrite the medication if indicated) or be the result of user error as unfortunately sometimes veterans do not realize they are out of refills on medication they also have run out of pills for. Heather helps our team get medication needs to the Primary Care providers in a timely manner, and will reach out to other disciplines when needs reach into specialized care. Heather helps us submit timely consults for specialty clinics and will follow up with the clinics as needed to explain that these veterans are in group homes and may need additional follow up care. She had helped us place PT/OT consults for numerous veterans in the community in order to ensure they can remain in the least restrictive setting for as long as possible. Whenever we share an alert of a shared veteran needing an emergency hospitalization, she makes a point to read the reports from the hospital to see what services we can put in place in the community for them once they discharge back home.