She is a certified nurse executive leader with more than 20 years of experience.  She takes responsibility for areas that she is assigned to.  She has also successfully opened and closed nursing units and professionally managed the politics that came with both of those experiences to where it was win- win situation.  She has served as Staff Nurse, ACLS Instructor, Educator, Nurse Manager and now Director.  We had a fire that resulted in significant water damage to one of the floors on the hospital during the middle of the night. She came in to the hospital to assist the night supervisor to address this issue.  Her goal was to make sure that the patients and staff were safe, and that was accomplished.  She also can be counted on to spend the night in the hospital during snow storms or any type of emergency that we may be experiencing without being asked or prompted.  She serves on several hospital and health system committees and is often sought out for her expertise.  She has and continues to mentor and develop other nursing leaders.  She is sought out for her knowledge and experience and does this with grace and patience.  I appreciate her wisdom, thoughtfulness and commitment to Duke Regional Hospital.

This nurse completed her DNP degree all while managing and leading her team through the pandemic.  She reviewed evidence and advocated for and received approval for the resources to hire Clinical Nurse Specialists in critical care and medical-surgical nursing, based on the large number of new graduate nurses that have been hired.  This was new to our hospital, as we had none prior to this.

She participates in research and is now published in a major nursing magazine related to care of patients withdrawing from alcohol.  She has assisted Human Resources in job fairs at the hospital, at local colleges and also out of state, where she has conducted interviews on site.  She implemented the Early Nurse Intervention Team (ENIT) program, which has resulted in a reduction of Code Blue calls.  Also reduced vacant nursing positions by 85% within the past year by implementation of creative recruitment strategies

She was and continues to be a valuable member of the leadership team, as we supported our teams through the pandemic.  She advocated for support as well as made sure the nursing units had what they needed to protect themselves and our patients.  She mentored and supported the nurses to identify creative ways to support patient care, i.e., she advocated for windows in patient doors to increase visualization of the patients.  Also supported the nursing staff with working with our facilities staff to create a process where the IV pumps were outside the rooms for COVID-19-positive patients.  This innovation required advocacy and obtaining support so that the nurses could visualize.  I also am grateful to this nurse who recognized that the nurses needed additional support to care for patients with behavioral issues on the medical-surgical floors.  She is the first to advocate by requesting and organizing team meetings to make sure we have a safety plan in place.  She also led efforts to create kits that contained needed supplies to provide to families of patients with COVID-19 once the visitation opened up.  This idea was implemented hospital-wide.  This nurse and her team took responsibility for making the kits and assuring that they were available throughout the organization

She initiated Complex Care Rounds, where a team comes together to review and assure that plans of care/support are in place for patients with behavioral issues on the med/surg floors.  She demonstrates caring by advocating for nurses when she feels they are being pushed to take more patients than they can handle.  She will take the time to evaluate the situation to come up with alternatives, and then will advocate for the nurses and patients when necessary.  She worked with key stakeholders and developed admission criteria and guidelines for proper patient placement.  She will advocate for patients and nursing staff by addressing patient care issues with the Physicians.  For example, if there is a patient on a medical floor requiring frequent monitoring and care, she will address this issue with nursing staff and the medical doctors, to ensure that the patient is transferred to the appropriate level of care.

She serves as Preceptor to nursing students and other nurse leaders by freely sharing her knowledge and experience.  She is excellent at advocating for the amount and types of staff that are needed to care for our patients.  I am always impressed with how she knows the details of each unit and interfaces with unit staff to verify their needs.  She also continually supports innovation.  She supported the ENIT program long before others embraced the concept.  She is all about making sure that our newer nurses get the benefit of a critical care nurse rounding at least daily on their units.  Lastly, I look to Faith for her staffing expertise.  She has helped all of the nurses on our team by making sure that we have better than adequate staffing on our medical units.  I actually heard our ICU nurses say how happy they were about all of their new graduate nurses that they were able to hire.

Most significant is this nominee’s willingness to take on important projects. Whether mentoring or leading by example from start to finish, all benefit from her passion for process improvement.