She is the ideal Nurse Manager.  When a patient or visitor shares a concern, she always, and I mean always, follows up appropriately.  She not only helps address any issues that may exist, but she plays a huge role in assuring patients that their concerns have been heard.  Rather than asking someone else to, she has offered many times to follow up with patients and families directly.  She leads by example and shows that although doing the morally correct thing may not be the “quickest” option, it’s the right thing to do and therefore, the “only” option.

She leads with transparency and honesty at all times.  She treats every team member with dignity and respect.  For example, during huddle if a question is asked that she doesn’t have a concrete answer to, she will go above and beyond to find out the answer and bring it back to the team in a timely manner.  She lives Duke’s values at all times.

Besides being a certified medical-surgical RN (CMSRN) and a Nurse Manager, she expects the best from her team.  She models this in her actions and responses to so many questions as we have transitioned multiple times to take on new challenges.  She led our team as we were one of the first hospital units to begin Commit to Zero, while motivating the staff that this was going to be positive for patients as well as staff.  She expects and enables all of us to do the best job that we can do.  If we have problems delivering exemplary care, she will ask what our barriers are and work to eliminate those barriers or provide us with what we need to provide excellent care, whether that is supplies, personnel or education.  She encourages all of us to operate to our fullest potential and truly believes in us.  She demonstrates this by encouraging committee participation, certification, and Clinical Ladder advancement, and believing that we can do it, even if we don’t believe in ourselves.

She consistently seeks out new health care models to pilot on the unit.  By doing so, she keeps her unit at the foreground of new information, technology and nursing practice.  This allows her staff to provide the most up-to-date care to our community.  She continues to take on new challenges, such as opening the Short Stay Unit on a unit that already consisted of 47 beds.  When COVID hit, she rallied her team to train to care for higher-level care patients by helping create a boot camp to further education and support patient safety.  Most recently, she has helped open a brand-new unit taking care of a brand-new population of patients.  She is working hard to provide her team members with the support they need to be successful.  She constantly thinks outside of the box and never takes “no” as an answer when there is a possibility to figure out a solution that works for all involved.

She consistently works with interprofessional colleagues, whether that be Environmental Services, Information Technology, or any other of the numerous departments that make up this hospital.  Many different departments and their input are necessary to coordinate the ongoing care of patients and support of the staff.  This nurse creates authentic engagement to improve patient outcomes.  Over the past few years, she has partnered with other disciplines to drive improvement in catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) in the orthopedic population.  As a result of her collaborative leadership style and engaging team members at all levels, her unit accomplished being CAUTI-free for 29 months in a row.

This Nurse Manager is a perfect example of caring.  She cares about and is more invested in her staff than any manager I’ve ever known.  She listens when presented with issues and does everything she can to make sure they’re resolved, while also providing us with her support in those difficult moments to get us through.  She always makes our voices heard and gives us her genuine time and attention, no matter what.  If I ever come to her with safety issues, she recognizes and appreciates my perspective and assists me in finding solutions.  She has invested so much of her heart into the work she does, and that is apparent by the overall satisfaction and culture of our staff.  I have never met someone more invested in her role from a caring perspective than she is.

This nominee is an astounding and inspirational Nurse Manager who goes above and beyond to ensure those around her receive the highest quality care, and provides us with an excellent, caring work environment.