I have known Grace for almost six years and her unwavering enthusiasm and promotion of nursing professional development has remained consistent since the first day I met her.  The first time I met Grace, I was in a different role at the hospital and not her direct supervisor.  Grace was in the SICU, initiating a mock code drill to help educate nursing and ancillary staff on managing as a team through a code blue.  She had engaged the physician of the unit to support the mock code, and the entire critical care team went through the drill and then debriefed.  As a spectator, I saw a spark in Grace’s face light up when she was educating and providing feedback to the team.  She was engaging and confident, and I remember thinking to myself, now that’s an educator!

Fast forward to the present day, I now have had the pleasure of being Grace’s direct supervisor.  Grace is articulate and passionate about all that she teaches.  She has a true desire to influence our next generation of nurses and exhibits this within her daily responsibilities.  Grace is the Nursing Professional Development Specialist (NPDS) who supports all of Harris Health System in critical care.  As the NPDS, one of her primary functions is supporting and preparing our new graduate nurses (GNs).  Grace will assess needs, identify opportunities and implement education pertaining to areas noted to ensure our GNs are successfully transitioning.  Grace has identified service line education tailored specific to the GNs by ensuring they complete their Essentials of Critical Care Orientation (ECCO) online modules, have case study reviews, utilization of simulation to draw home critical thinking and rounds weekly on the units to discuss progress with the GN, leadership and unit-based educators.  Grace does a similar process for our Fellowship Program designed for experienced nurses moving into a new specialty service line area.  The GNs all feel very supported by Grace as she truly does her best to build trusting relationships with the staff and to advocate on their behalf.  

Grace will go to the literature to support innovation or new knowledge.  She identifies best practices and will oftentimes bring these to the attention of leadership.  Grace is constantly looking for ways to improve practice. Whenever she comes across an issue, instead of dismissing the issue or overlooking it, Grace will attack the situation at hand.  Most recently, Grace identified a practice gap found among the ICUs with respect to PA catheter syringe maintenance post-wedging.  Grace immediately queried and evaluated all of the ICUs and took the lead to bring the issue up to leadership via an SBAR format for clarity purposes.  She was fully prepared to lead the initiative to ensure safety of our patients, best practices and standardization of processes.  

Grace is very adaptable to change.  One of our strategic goals for Nursing Professional Development was to adopt and implement the Donna Wright Competency Framework.  Grace read through the book and made herself an expert.  Although a very new process and a true culture shift for our organization, Grace took the lead and volunteered to be the first service line to pilot the transition.  She worked diligently to not only become a master of this framework, but also invested time and attention to educate leadership, unit-based educators and staff.  She hosted multiple sessions and placed the Critical Care Units on timelines with key essential items to walk them along the process.  She led the efforts for a successful pilot of all critical care units within our hospital system.  For the second year, when all the other units were slowly starting to adopt Donna Wright, Grace took it upon herself to serve as a liaison to these units by also presenting education to the leadership, staff and educators.  She worked countless hours getting everyone ready and prepared for the transition.  She even created a workshop for all educators to attend that was not only informative, but extremely engaging and fun.  

I cannot submit this recommendation without also showcasing all the hard work and effort focused on quality.  Grace is constantly working on education plans for any fall outs identified through accreditation or new initiatives that are underway for the ICUs at HHS.  Grace has worked on PCA order set, titratable medications, blood cultures, most recently on our upcoming Stroke and Chest Pain accreditation.  With the upcoming accreditation/site visit, Grace helped create and support education to get all staff up to date.  Examples of her support and education implemented were Observation Status education for chest pain observation, TNKase for STEMI and high sensitivity troponin.  With all of these education initiatives, Grace must review literature, best practices, create the education plan, create the timeline/strategy and identify methodology for delivery.  In addition to that, after she has completed the education, Grace ensures she reviews evaluations and at 6 month and yearly will re-evaluate outcomes to ensure sustainability.  

Grace will review all of her programs and presentations annually to ensure they still obtain the latest evidence.  Grace has disseminated her work at national conferences highlighted and promoting the great work done at Harris Health.  Grace will also graciously accept any feedback for improvement.  I have had a couple of situations where Grace has asked me for direct feedback on ways she can better herself and has worked very hard at ensuring she always remains professional and is exhibiting her best self.  I honestly believe Grace is the epitome of what an educator should look like.  She has proven day in and day out what an asset she is to our organization and to our subspecialty of nursing professional development.  It is with utmost pride that I nominate Mrs. Phan as our DAISY Nurse Educator.