Nicole is passionate about providing the best possible patient care experiences. She reminds us daily about our patient experience scores. She holds us accountable for our portion of what we can do to make our patients find their ED stays the best we can make them under the circumstances of their visit. She reminds us that we choose how we see this patient, how we see the shift, the day, the problem at hand, and that seeing the optimistic view or vision can lead to the best possible outcome.

Nicole leads by example. She is polite, she is well spoken, she thinks and finds solutions to help us work through an opportunity to find closure for us and the patient. She genuinely listens and allows us to share, and she gently directs us to a resolution, starting with ourselves, what can we do. What do we need from her, etc. Sometimes the listening alone is so amazing, we work right into resolution! Nicole constantly reminds us we are a team and need to work together as a good team. We need to be good teammates not only for our co-workers but also for co-workers from other departments. She demonstrates this herself and holds us accountable, also.

Nicole empowers us to work to our full potential as nurses and techs, HUCS, or whatever our role is. We are expected to follow our protocols, to ask questions, to try to improve a process, and to find solutions to opportunities. She wants to be timely and responsive to not only our patients' needs but also our co-workers ' and our own needs. She advocates for personal care, helping us see if we aren’t making some good choices personally or professionally, and offers guidance toward resolution and improvement.

Nicole is timely on her commitments to me and others in committees, on teams, or with her leadership workload. She has learned the old way, looked at new ways, and helps us to find our way, balancing the limitations of equipment, policy, personal abilities, and the network requirements. Nicole does everything described, which makes extraordinary nurse leader. She creates a caring environment with mutual respect, compassion, trust, and ethical behavior. She motivates us and shares her vision of ED utopia with enthusiasm and gives us goals, and helps us to work for the best outcomes for our patients and us.

Additionally, she always encourages us to be professional, to share our skills in our community, and to grow our profession. Finally, Nicole is just a good person. She loves her family at home, and I believe we have become a new family to her here at work. She drives over an hour each day to be here with us. That alone shows commitment, but when she can’t be here in person, she is always available in some way as we need her. She's sometimes like a parent, sometimes like a teacher, sometimes like a friend, sometimes a co-worker, but always a leader, someone who is there for you in whatever way you need.