Asha is a leader who prides herself on growing her staff and giving them the tools to provide great quality care.  Asha has helped many staff members grow. This year, she nominated one of our staff nurses for the TCH Nurse Excellence Award, and she won.  It was the first time ever for a radiology nurse to receive such a prestigious award.  She has helped mentor many of our staff members.  One of our charge nurses was recently promoted to NPD as a nursing educator which is a really challenging department to get into.  Asha was able to help grow this nurse and give her projects while also assigning her as a training partner, and she was able to achieve RN IV status.  An NPD position requires educator background, but because of this nurse's experience with different projects and as training partner she qualified and got the promotion.

Asha has helped lead a lot of growth for radiology nursing over the past several years.  When IR began taking on PFW adult and OB patients, she helped design an action plan to prepare the nurses to care for this patient population and within a year all of the radiology nurses were ACLS certified.  She has helped create work-flows so we could launch a research study for an MRI safe blanket that could lead to a decrease in hypothermia incidence for our anesthesia patients.  

When the WL lost their nurse leader and they had quality issues with their nursing staff, she helped staff their unit and covered so that her staff could attend an education training day.  Even though the issues were not at the main campus, she was committed to making sure that the WL had staffing and nursing leadership support until their positions could be filled.  She even jumped into staffing here at MC so she could send a nurse to the WL.  Asha is great at partnering with other leaders in her department and around the organization. With the recent opening of west tower 18, we acquired a new HIFU MRI, which uses US waves in an MRI to ablate tumors non-invasively.  This technology was going to be used by the adult neurosurgeons at St. Luke’s as well as our neurosurgeons.  She was part of a multidisciplinary team that put an action plan on how to prepare our staff for this new patient population. This training and education was highlighted in our recent TCH professional day summit. She has developed a close relationship with partners outside of radiology like the Cath lab and has been successful in partnering for staffing or resources when needed.  She truly believes that we are all one team, and staff approach her in the same manner.  She has techs, physicians, and other nursing leaders approach her about concerns, and even though they may not always be nursing-related, she makes sure that she follows up and engages the right stakeholders.  Her ability to partner and collaborate as a leader is one of her biggest strengths.  

Asha has been with the organization for 19 years. She is committed to TCH and truly embodies the values of this organization.  In a recent huddle with staff, she was bombarded with questions about how our pay and bonuses do not compare to others in the medical center.  I was so proud of her when she was able to diffuse the crowd by talking about prioritizing your goals.  Even though TCH may not pay as much, our work, innovation, and focus on its people will always set us apart.  I had two nurses who left in the past year and came back and shared they came back because the leadership did not compare to the leadership that they had here.  Asha listens and is supportive, fair, and consistent.  She cares about the staff and about the quality of care that we deliver to our patients.