Sandra has been a leader for more than 20 years and is currently the director role for the float pool, house supervisors, and the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit. She is a leader who exemplifies the core defining characteristics of a charismatic leader daily. This is reflected in her principles, emotional sensitivity, and willingness to lead by example. Sandra will not ask her team anything she is unwilling to do herself and can often be found at the bedside of a patient helping answer call lights, repositioning for comfort, or even assisting with a medication pass. When she is everything she possibly can to make them comfortable before she leaves the room. Sandra has a big heart for our hospital, patients, and staff and that is vividly displayed in every action and decision she makes in which the patient is always at the center of her mind and nursing care.

Sandra’s heart and soul are dedicated to St. Francis and the patients that walk through our doors. This dedication as a leader drives her exemplary practice to be adaptable and flexible to do whatever the circumstances demand. She has transitioned through many leadership roles during her time here at the hospital. She has been Clinical Nursing Manager and Nursing Director over the Medical Surgical Unit and the Progressive Care Unit for at least 15 years. In the last four years, she transitioned to the Director over the nursing float pool and house supervisors and has been instrumental in rapidly growing and developing the resource pool of nurses. When there was a critical need for an interim director in the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit almost a year ago, Sandra graciously stepped up to fill that role. Her dedication and drive to the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit have allowed it to succeed in several measures under her tenure as interim director; thus, resulting in her willingness to permanently manage and lead this department.

Sandra is a strong leader and committed to ensuring the team succeeds. She has a strong work ethic and will work tirelessly to ensure that the patient has the best care possible from our nurses. One example of this during the COVID pandemic was that Sandra was appointed charge of the command center which is a full-encompassing role to ensure that there is open, transparent communication amongst the team, roles and duties are being completed as assigned, and following up on any concerns that have been brought forth. Unfortunately, the responsibility of charge of the command center was a time-consuming task and feat which often brought Sandra in on the weekends to ensure that assignments were being completed and covered. This work led her to receive the Admiralship Award from Governor Pete Ricketts which is an honorary title for the civic role and duty she played in assisting with the COVID pandemic.

A more recent example of her extraordinary practice would be the work that she has completed amongst her team to create a culture of yes to ensure that patients across the state can receive high-quality care in our organization. Oftentimes patients will transfer to our hospital and may possibly be held in the Emergency Department (ED) for a short time while the inpatient floor, bed, and nurse are being readied for their arrival. During these times, additional nursing assistance may be needed in the ED or the inpatient units. Due to her leadership, role modeling, and training, the house supervisor will often step up with patient care and help with transfers from ED to the floor, assist with admitting a patient in EPIC, or help administer medications as needed. Our culture of yes and commitment to the patients would not exist without her leadership and guidance.

Sandra always puts patient care first and works collaboratively with all disciplines to create an environment that fosters care and compassion. Sandra is easily able to create a personal connection with each patient and works to ensure that the Inpatient Rehabilitation (IRU) nursing staff views the patient with dignity, respect, and compassion. To create this environment, she helped to implement a formal process to create a warm connection between the nurse and the patient while simultaneously fostering an opportunity for the nursing staff to discover more about the patient as an individual. Some of the information asked and revealed includes their profession, details about their families, fun facts, hobbies, and favorite foods. This environment creates such a powerful impression on the patient that demonstrates our organization's dedication to compassion and kindness.
Not only does Sandra foster an environment of care and compassion for patients, but she does the same actions for her nursing team. At Christmas this past year, she was determined to give each of the nurses a special gift from the heart that she had created. She and her manager spent countless hours crafting with the Cricut to make personalized water bottles for each of the 40 nurses that she leads. In addition, Sandra also took the time to provide handwritten Christmas cards for each staff member that were from the heart and penned to capture and thank each employee for the special gifts that they bring to the team.

Sandra holds her team accountable and coaches in a gentle, professional manner. She does not let things slide which has created a team of high-performing, highly engaged staff. She meets monthly with her charge nurses and house supervisors to grow their leadership skills and potential. Currently, they are working through a Cy Wakeman book on minimizing drama, creating a supportive environment, and ensuring that everyone is embracing reality. Sandra helps to guide this work-study program in which chapters are assigned to be read and each staff member has reflective assignments in which they must evaluate their skill for strengths and opportunities for improvement.

Sandra is a fair and justified leader, and when there is discord on the floor, she is always willing to sit, listen to staff, and provide mental and emotional support for her team as she works diligently to create resilience amongst our nursing teams. Sandra is a firm believer in a supportive environment for nurses and works hard in the units to help ensure this concept is prevalent and active in their cultures. Her core values reflect her guiding principle of always assuming positive intent in other’s actions and are reinforced by her ability to be calm, compassionate, and patient as she works to ensure harmony amongst her teams. As a leader, Sandra works diligently to hold staff accountable for their actions and behaviors. She views each of these instances as an opportunity to call her staff members to greatness and help them visualize their concerns from the stance of the patient. This method helps to bring differing opinions to a common ground and facilitates communication and resolution of issues. Her ability to diplomatically handle any conflict reinforces her leadership skills and wisdom.

Sandra’s vision for the organization and all her teams is that St. Francis is committed to providing compassionate, individualized, top-notch regional care in the midwest portion of the state. This is achieved through her expert leadership skills in which she can unite nurses to create high-performing teams that are experts in their respective fields, but can also be confident with their nursing skills which leads to a willingness to help and assist in other areas in the hospital and the community.

Recently in conjunction with the IRU program and their nurses, Sandra is helping to formulate a stroke support group that will plan to meet monthly at the hospital to provide additional resources for this vulnerable population in the Grand Island community. Their vision is a stroke survivor team in which those recently afflicted by a stroke could learn and develop inspiration from individuals who have learned to accept their disabilities from the stroke yet still live a fulfilling life of meaning.

Nursing is Sandra’s mission and calling and this is reflected through all of Sandra’s activities and her team’s involvement in the community. She is always the first to volunteer and actively participate in off-site work activities. She has often helped yearly with Husker Harvest Days and utilizes this opportunity to promote St. Francis and the work we do. This year, Sandra and her team are helping to organize the presence that our institution will have in the Harvest of Harmony Parade. This is no easy feat, as they are all working together to design and build a float that will incorporate nursing and other disciplines in the hospital. Sandra’s enthusiasm, positivity, and strong energy easily attract employees that want to join in on the fun and embrace the opportunity to be a part of something bigger for our organization.

Sandra is an active member of the Nursing Knowledge and Innovation team at the St. Francis organization. This team is instrumental in garnering information and data to create opportunities to enhance practice and develop research projects. She has helped the team to realize and address the concerns with resiliency, morale, and burnout amongst nurses that are affecting the national nursing shortage. One of the current research projects that is being implemented in our organization is nursing and their experience as the second victim. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the second victim related to the physical and physiological symptoms of nursing staff as well as to determine the quality of available support resources. Her mission with this project is to help restore peace and balance in the lives of our nurses who dedicate hours to our patients, community, and the profession.

Sandra plays an active role in the community as she represents nursing and St. Francis in a multitude of ways. Sandra is on the Steering Committee for SkillsUSA and works with the community every Spring and helps to coordinate volunteers for the SkillsUSA event at Fonner Park in an attempt to bring awareness of healthcare careers to young adults. She is also an active member of the Grand Island Senior High Medical Academy Advisory Board and is actively involved in the Healthcare Academy tours of our facility. Her involvement in these tours helps to engage and expose young adults to a variety of healthcare modalities including nursing, radiology, and laboratory services.

Sandra is also committed to the growth and development of the nursing profession by being an active member and participant in the Central Community College Nursing School advisory board. Her pursuit of knowledge and growth not only for herself and others has also led her to sit on the Board of Directors at College Park for 6 years ending in 2021. She is also determined to make a greater impact on nursing and its legacy. Sandra fulfills this goal by being an active member of the American Organization of Nursing Leadership.

Sandra is the co-chair of the Falls Prevention Team and is passionate about safety. The main mission of the falls team is to keep patients free from injury. She helps to lead monthly interdisciplinary meetings in which data is shared and analyzed to develop action plans. Under her leadership, the rate of patient falls with injury has drastically decreased by almost 50% due to increased awareness of fall prevention interventions. This has been promoted through weekly audits of rooms and feedback shared with staff to ensure safety measures are implemented. In addition, this team created a March Madness theme presentation that was shared at each interdisciplinary department’s staff meetings to heighten awareness of the available resources.

Sandra has helped to facilitate in the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit (IRU) the utilization of patient profiles to monitor and track patient outcomes. Essentially, the use of this tool helps to objectively measure mobility, self-care, and safe discharge destinations. One avenue in which this was completed was with collaboration amongst the nursing and therapy teams to ensure accurate documentation from both viewpoints. In addition, she helped to formulate the implementation of the profile resource during the multidisciplinary team meetings every Wednesday. These sessions include the physiatrist, the patient and their family, physical, occupational, and speech therapy, the primary nurse, and the care management team. The purpose of these meetings is to drive the patient’s progress by evaluating the plan of care, developing goals so the patient can have a successful discharge, and eliminating any barriers to the patient’s improvement. All of these measures are captured and driven by the patient profiles.