Over the past year, Marisa has made exceptional efforts in various areas regarding the Vascular Access Team including team building, expanding operations, planning initiatives for the opening of DCN, midline power plan, revising the Vascu-PICC power plan, and restructuring the PICC request submission form. Acknowledging this dedication and contribution to these multiple aspects of, not only the VAT team's growth and improvement but also Dell Children's as a whole is truly commendable.

As our leader, she has achieved expanding Vascular Access from just 4 individuals to a team of 13. Her dedication to training and ensuring consistency throughout the team's expansion is exemplary. Her commitment to maintaining a standardized training program while onboarding new members signifies her exceptional leadership and commitment to maintaining high-quality standards within our team. This effort greatly contributes to the team's cohesion and effectiveness. Through such effective team growth and supervision, we can now offer more coverage for high-quality vascular access services.

Marisa's involvement in planning for vascular access coverage at DCN showcases her versatility and strategic planning capabilities. Her contributions to ensuring adequate vascular access services to our patients demonstrate her commitment to the success of the hospital's operations and patient care. Her proactive approach in this critical aspect highlights her dedication and valuable engagement to our healthcare facilities.

Her adaptation of the original power plan framework to tailor it for Vascu-PICCs and consideration of specific carrier fluids and other critical details show her expertise and meticulousness. Her involvement in the review process, ensuring that all necessary stakeholders had the opportunity to assess and endorse the plan, reflects her dedication to regulatory compliance and comprehensive protocol implementation. Her thoroughness and collaboration with the NICU transport team in this process contribute significantly to maintaining quality standards and adherence to protocols within the healthcare environment.

Through her initiative in restructuring the PICC request submission form, she reflects a proactive approach to enhancing the system's efficiency by using evidence-based practice. By improving the submission form to guide providers to explore vascular access options, she is facilitating better decision-making and streamlining the process, ultimately improving patient care and safety. Her attention to detail and focus on optimizing protocols underscores her commitment to continuous improvement within our healthcare system. Marisa has worked endlessly to provide an exceptional foundation of knowledge for our growing team and continues to support each of us in all capacities. For months on end, she brainstormed, worked, and reworked plans of how we could best provide support and assist with vascular access needs for our patients at DCN. She attended innumerable meetings with leadership to research, clarify, and educate providers and staff on our midline criteria. Marisa's commitment to continuously building and shaping the team's future, coupled with her unwavering enthusiasm to the field of vascular access is commendable.

With grateful hearts and full admiration of our teammate, Marisa Zavala, our Vascular Access Team believes that she is more than deserving of receiving this award. She has and will continue to provide excellent leadership to our team, excellent care to our patients at both DCMC and DCN, excellent attention to detail and unending research to support our policies, procedures, and power plans, and continuously strive to provide excellence to the greater team that is the Dell Children's family.