Throughout Could, we have fun Nationwide Nurses Week (Could 6-12) and the extraordinary nurses serving at Highlands-Cashiers Hospital (HCH) and Eckerd Dwelling Heart (ELC). Our nursing crew is second to none, as our sufferers and crew members will inform you.
To be a profitable and impactful nurse right this moment, you will need to have the ability to sustain with continually evolving care protocols, scientific finest practices, and each business and institution-specific requirements. Then there’s ensuring you retain abreast of every thing occurring in your personal space of specialty, whether or not that’s the Emergency Division, normal inpatient care, or rehabilitation companies. All of that is in fact completed with care and compassion, which is what I consider makes nursing particular.
As I prefer to share, people who find themselves sick or injured are scared and hurting. That is typically their worst day, and serving to somebody by means of this expertise will be troublesome. Nurses maintain the fingers of sufferers throughout these intervals of utmost ache, concern, or when dealing with dying or loss.
Creativity known as for too, in assembly a affected person’s distinctive wants. No two sufferers are the identical, and nurses are referred to as upon to fastidiously monitor and handle refined modifications in each affected person’s situation, convey them to the opposite care crew members that come into contact with the affected person, and reply to the bodily, psychological, social, religious, and emotional wants of a affected person.
It’s additionally vital to keep in mind that our nurses don’t simply take care of sufferers, they actually take care of households as properly. Our nurses be sure that relations and family members keep knowledgeable about how a affected person is doing, they usually have to be in a position always to reply knowledgeably and sensitively to the numerous questions they obtain a few affected person’s wellbeing.
Annually, we acknowledge a particular nurse with a DAISY Award. The DAISY award was created by the DAISY Basis to acknowledge excellent nursing care. DAISY is definitely an acronym that stands for Illnesses Attacking the Immune System, and traces again to its origin in 1999. The household of J. Patrick Barnes created the muse after Patrick’s loss, as they have been so moved by the extraordinary compassion of the nurses who walked with them. The intent fairly merely is to acknowledge glorious, compassionate, skillful nursing care. It’s a particular award, and I’ve been moved by most of the tales shared by sufferers or households. The deadline for this yr’s DAISY Award nominations was on the finish of April, and we’ll be recognizing our winner on Could sixth.
It’s particularly vital to acknowledge the work nurses do as a result of now we have seen them act significantly heroically during the last two years as we confronted one thing we by no means might have imagined: the COVID-19 pandemic. Nurses, greater than anybody else, needed to shift their focus and the way they delivered care to our sufferers repeatedly, as extra grew to become recognized concerning the virus and as COVID numbers rose and fell at HCH. We needed to be significantly vigilant in caring for our senior ELC sufferers, since these 65 years of age and older are particularly weak to issues from COVID.
Along with the excellent scientific experience offered by our nurses that I witness every day, when you speak to most nurses, they may notice that their profession is a real calling, not only a path they adopted with curiosity. Their compassion is mirrored in numerous methods, whether or not that’s taking the time to test in and listen to what’s actually taking place in a affected person’s life, addressing a affected person’s urgent concern, or going the additional mile to point out them kindness or make them as snug as potential. In brief, they make what can appear to be a sterile setting, heat and human.
We assist nurses in numerous methods right here on the hospital, from offering alternatives for skilled progress to extra enjoyable celebrations throughout Nurses Week. HCA Healthcare is dedicated to providing nurses alternatives for persevering with their training, and advancing their careers by means of acquiring further skilled certifications, management coaching, and tuition reimbursement.
Nurses contribute their appreciable mind and abilities to each space of the hospital, from bedside nursing to administration and institutional management. I actually have a background in cardiac and emergency nursing, having labored in a number of areas to incorporate open coronary heart restoration, ICU, and the ER. Serving sufferers propelled me into wanting to achieve expertise and make a distinction as a hospital chief.
Our neighborhood couldn’t be extra lucky to have the distinctive crew of nurses who grace our hospital and our sufferers’ lives every day. I do know I’ve the backing of each HCH and ELC crew member, in addition to each neighborhood member, once I clarify that our work really couldn’t occur with out them. They drive affected person care and all we do right here, and we’re profoundly grateful for his or her time, dedication, and caring hearts.
Tom Neal, RN, MBA, MHA, is the Chief Govt Officer and Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) of Highlands-Cashiers Hospital. Neal is a confirmed chief with greater than 30 years of progressive healthcare expertise. Previous to his function at Highlands-Cashiers Hospital, he held the place of Chief Govt Officer of Neighborhood Well being Methods (CHS) and served as Chief Govt Officer of each Berwick Hospital Heart in Berwick, Pennsylvania, and Greenbrier Valley Medical Heart, Ronceverte, West Virginia. Tom has an MBA from the College of Louisville, MHA from the California Faculty of Well being Sciences, BSN from Regents Faculty of New York and an ADN from Jefferson Neighborhood Faculty.
