May 2024
4 North
at Atrium Health Mercy
4 North
Atrium Health-Mercy
Charlotte
,
NC
United States
The DAISY Team Award acknowledges that sometimes it doesn’t take just one nurse to make a difference, but sometimes the entire village. Sometimes a group of nurses will go above and beyond the traditional role of a nurse to provide a patient with what they need to feel safe, cared for, individualized, and respected.
The 4 North team has done this with a patient for the last two years as he has lived on the unit. He has been enveloped as one of their own by creating a space where he feels safe and loved. That has been accomplished in multiple different ways requiring a huge group effort, collaboration with multiple areas, and compassionate care above all else.
Due to this patient’s diagnosis, he has a hard time communicating, and it was a major frustration for the patient that would escalate his behaviors. The team quickly trialed different communication techniques for him and found the written word to be his favorite. The team gave him supplies for writing and continues to provide him with what he needs. As he got more comfortable with the team, he even communicated specific colors he likes to write in to make it easier for him to see.
To help increase communication with him and decrease the verbally aggressive behavior that was associated with his frustrations, we created a ‘commit to sit’ rotation to spend individualized 1-1 time with him. He slowly got to know the core team members and started building trust with us, which allowed the team to work with him on increasing ADL compliance and independent activities. He also started listening to team instructions without getting upset. He began to participate in unit activities with the team to increase social interaction or would come out of his room to sit at the nurse’s station with us.
The team wanted him to feel included in his care plan as part of our patient-centered care model and began allowing him activity options for the day or week that he felt comfortable with. This is how EP or other therapy services became involved in his care. The team's involvement in his care plan also made him begin to make requests for issues that he was too scared to bring forward. This led the team to find new reading glasses for him, led us to partner with Ortho to get a new brace that he needed, and partnered with Dietary to create new and diverse meal options for him since he has been a patient for so long here. The team also partnered with case management to schedule a much-needed dental visit off-site to provide him with the dental care he needed for a hurt tooth.
We also saw the need for the patient to be seen as a person instead of a patient, and coordinated with chaplain services to get him new clothes from our clothing drive so he didn’t have to wear scrubs all the time. It made him feel more comfortable and taught him a new skill of washing clothes to increase his ADL compliance. To make him feel even more special and individualized, the team will give him special haircuts and involve him in holiday celebrations, and we even celebrated his birthday this last year.
The 4 North team knows that to make patients feel loved, you often have to go above the requirements of checking off the tasks. We always aim to put heart in everything we do, and with this patient, we have given him our hearts tenfold.
The 4 North team has done this with a patient for the last two years as he has lived on the unit. He has been enveloped as one of their own by creating a space where he feels safe and loved. That has been accomplished in multiple different ways requiring a huge group effort, collaboration with multiple areas, and compassionate care above all else.
Due to this patient’s diagnosis, he has a hard time communicating, and it was a major frustration for the patient that would escalate his behaviors. The team quickly trialed different communication techniques for him and found the written word to be his favorite. The team gave him supplies for writing and continues to provide him with what he needs. As he got more comfortable with the team, he even communicated specific colors he likes to write in to make it easier for him to see.
To help increase communication with him and decrease the verbally aggressive behavior that was associated with his frustrations, we created a ‘commit to sit’ rotation to spend individualized 1-1 time with him. He slowly got to know the core team members and started building trust with us, which allowed the team to work with him on increasing ADL compliance and independent activities. He also started listening to team instructions without getting upset. He began to participate in unit activities with the team to increase social interaction or would come out of his room to sit at the nurse’s station with us.
The team wanted him to feel included in his care plan as part of our patient-centered care model and began allowing him activity options for the day or week that he felt comfortable with. This is how EP or other therapy services became involved in his care. The team's involvement in his care plan also made him begin to make requests for issues that he was too scared to bring forward. This led the team to find new reading glasses for him, led us to partner with Ortho to get a new brace that he needed, and partnered with Dietary to create new and diverse meal options for him since he has been a patient for so long here. The team also partnered with case management to schedule a much-needed dental visit off-site to provide him with the dental care he needed for a hurt tooth.
We also saw the need for the patient to be seen as a person instead of a patient, and coordinated with chaplain services to get him new clothes from our clothing drive so he didn’t have to wear scrubs all the time. It made him feel more comfortable and taught him a new skill of washing clothes to increase his ADL compliance. To make him feel even more special and individualized, the team will give him special haircuts and involve him in holiday celebrations, and we even celebrated his birthday this last year.
The 4 North team knows that to make patients feel loved, you often have to go above the requirements of checking off the tasks. We always aim to put heart in everything we do, and with this patient, we have given him our hearts tenfold.