Ashley Griffin
July 2022
Ashley
Griffin
,
BSN, RN, CPHON
CCBD
Children's Hospital Colorado
Aurora
,
CO
United States
Throughout this patient’s journey, Ashley constantly advocated on behalf of her patient to ensure her comfort, safety, and healing.
Ashley Griffin is just one of “those” nurses. To know her is to love her, whether you’re a coworker or lucky enough to be on the receiving end of the incredible nursing care she provides. She embodies our hospital values of generous service, caring community, humble expertise, and boundless creativity.
Recently, she has served as the primary nurse for one our most complex patients on the unit. This patient’s cancer introduced itself in the form of a stroke, leaving her debilitated. When she was able to transfer into our unit, she was a total cares patient, almost entirely non-responsive, and seemed to many like a lost cause. She was an emotionally and physically exhausting patient. An additional challenge was that the family’s primary language was not English. With every reason to walk away at her fingertips, Ashley did the opposite: she jumped in head first.
The level of ownership Ashley took of this patient and her family was admirable. She started by trying to build a robust team of caregivers to join her in the task of healing this little girl, a Caring Community if you will. Throughout this patient’s journey, Ashley constantly advocated on behalf of her patient to ensure her comfort, safety, and healing. Through Boundless Creativity, she created means to meet the patient’s unique needs for care. With Humble Expertise, she educated the parents on everything they would need to know to manage their daughter’s care at home. She did everything from getting home care instructions translated to Spanish, working tirelessly to train the parents on how to manage GT feeds and care for her central line, and instructing the parents how to monitor for signs of infection, to updating charge nurses frequently on where the discharge process was and creating a checklist for other nurses to reference.
I have no doubt that Ashley is a huge reason why this beautiful girl is still with us today, making huge strides in her recovery. While this example of care would be impressive in its singular instance, it is but one of many examples where Ashley goes above and beyond in providing Generous Service to patients in the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. She has a heart of gold for childhood cancer patients, and I can think of no one more deserving of a DAISY Award.
Recently, she has served as the primary nurse for one our most complex patients on the unit. This patient’s cancer introduced itself in the form of a stroke, leaving her debilitated. When she was able to transfer into our unit, she was a total cares patient, almost entirely non-responsive, and seemed to many like a lost cause. She was an emotionally and physically exhausting patient. An additional challenge was that the family’s primary language was not English. With every reason to walk away at her fingertips, Ashley did the opposite: she jumped in head first.
The level of ownership Ashley took of this patient and her family was admirable. She started by trying to build a robust team of caregivers to join her in the task of healing this little girl, a Caring Community if you will. Throughout this patient’s journey, Ashley constantly advocated on behalf of her patient to ensure her comfort, safety, and healing. Through Boundless Creativity, she created means to meet the patient’s unique needs for care. With Humble Expertise, she educated the parents on everything they would need to know to manage their daughter’s care at home. She did everything from getting home care instructions translated to Spanish, working tirelessly to train the parents on how to manage GT feeds and care for her central line, and instructing the parents how to monitor for signs of infection, to updating charge nurses frequently on where the discharge process was and creating a checklist for other nurses to reference.
I have no doubt that Ashley is a huge reason why this beautiful girl is still with us today, making huge strides in her recovery. While this example of care would be impressive in its singular instance, it is but one of many examples where Ashley goes above and beyond in providing Generous Service to patients in the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. She has a heart of gold for childhood cancer patients, and I can think of no one more deserving of a DAISY Award.