The nominee is an IT Manager and nursing informatician on the Maestro Care team, interacting with a wide range of customers including other IT teams and clinical users across all disciplines. She exhibits a high level of integrity in all of her interactions continuously conducting her work positively and exemplifying integrity throughout her daily engagements. A colleague from nursing leadership states: “In my role as the Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy liaison for Maestro Care, as well as my role as the Co-Chair of the Nursing and Ancillary Stakeholder Group, I have had the pleasure of working with nominee regularly over the past five years. The nominee has always been the consummate professional, working to find the best way to solve problems or issues, while offering up ideas and suggestions. She has been instrumental in assisting our department in optimizing our use of Maestro Care and has provided her expertise, her time, and any resources at her disposal to help us move forward.”

She maintains an active RN license in conjunction with a certification in Informatics Nursing (ANCC) and multiple Epic certifications that allow her to provide a viewpoint that encompasses both the clinical and technical components of health care delivery. As a peer indicates: “The nominee is a true advocate for nurses and all clinical staff in the ambulatory world. She may not work with the patients directly anymore, but her thoughtfulness, advocacy and knowledge show with each of the IT discussions she is involved in. I suspect this award is usually given to nurses who work directly with patients or to nurses who are in supervisory roles, but the nominee’s influence is felt broadly and from behind the scenes with the decisions she helps make in our computer system. Her nursing background makes her an invaluable asset in the leadership of the ambulatory team. She listens well, is an innovative thinker and provides caring and excellent feedback as we assess the needs and challenges of the end-users.”

With the onset of the pandemic, the nominee has been instrumental in ensuring the needs of our clinicians and patients have been met. She has been involved in multiple workgroups and committees to develop innovative technical solutions. At times these were a result of early morning or late night collaborations, to provide the tools necessary to meet the rapidly changing environment. A nursing leader: “The nominee has worked closely with the Nursing Informatics Council and the Nursing and Ancillary Stakeholder groups, part of our information technology (IT) governance process. She has served as the IT liaison for both groups, facilitating the requests for optimization made by staff across Duke Health. The nominee represented the Maestro Care Ambulatory Team during her time as IT liaison, and helped members understand any technical limitations, as well as pros and cons in requests that came before the group.

A nursing leader: “The nominee coordinated a key project for Duke Primary Care (DPC) nursing to expand barcode medication scanning to a few DPC ambulatory practices. The original process required manual documentation of the NDC numbers for medications, resulting in the lack of medication administration warnings in Maestro Care. Barcode scanning would allow for warnings to the nurse, such as incorrect medication, low dose, or high dose. She mentored a member of her team on this project, along with a Duke University School of Nursing health informatics MSN student. They spent time working with leaders and staff from the pilot clinics to understand their current workflows, including the physical layouts. They collaborated with other IT teams, including device support, to recommend the best setup for barcode scanners in the clinics to support the proposed new workflows. The team coordinated the build and testing, as well as…training. This innovative project has been a success in reducing medication safety concerns for the pilot practices.”

Although Lisa is no longer on the front lines delivering patient care, she still exemplifies what it means to be a “Duke” nurse. Through the sharing of knowledge, compassion, caring and partnership with interprofessional colleagues, Lisa transforms the lives of patients on a daily basis. In a time of uncertainty and when preventive care is even more important than ever, especially in regards to immunizations for patients, Lisa has impressively supported the North Carolina Immunization Registry (NCIR) interface for the MC Ambulatory Team. She has conducted presentations, per the request from Epic, with other organizations that are eager to hear the information she has to share. However, through it all, the focus is always on the impact to the patient whether it be researching why a clinic’s lot manager is not correct, or why an error message has occurred when sending information through the interface to NCIR, to the endless emails and meetings to ensure she addresses everyone’s concerns.

She truly is an inspiration and model to the core characteristics that of Duke Nursing.