She is an expert in her role and has shown this commitment to excellence by becoming a Certified Emergency Nurse. She consistently role models for newly hired nurses how to holistically care for patients in their time of crisis. This nurse is also a true patient advocate. She assists daily with the care of patients in the emergency department, making certain they have what they need to be successful carrying out their plan of care as well as to ensure they will have the resources necessary to do it safely. On a daily basis you will see her talking with patients and family members ensuring they feel that their voices are heard. She is an example of honesty and accountability in all encounters with patients and staff members.

Patients and their families feel safe and cared for in her hands, which is a blessing in an emergency setting. As the Charge Nurse in this department, this nurse is responsible for all of the patients, visitors, and staff within in the emergency room. She is responsible for ensuring that each patient within the emergency department gets the best possible care. Perhaps her greatest strength is her ability to mentor and onboard new staff members. She is often designated to serve as a preceptor to new graduate nurses, EMS/Paramedic students, nursing students and also high school students from the City of Medicine Academy. She is able to do this this with a consistent supportive and positive attitude. As a colleague, she is the first person to offer help in order to support her colleagues and our patients and their families.

She has spent time analyzing the needs of our new graduate nurses. She has not only gotten to know these individuals, this employee has focused on specific difficulties experienced by new graduates during their first year of employment. With this, this nurse worked with leadership to develop, revise, and standardize the orientation/preceptor process. She actively works with the leadership team, as well as frontline staff, to ensure our preceptors are providing a high quality orientation process that is consistent across preceptors and shifts. She has served on the Duke Regional Emergency Department Preceptor Committee, where she brought forth and implemented a process where new graduates work, learn, and get to know there preceptors away from work.

This nurse understands the importance of patient flow and its correlation to “left without being seen” rates, quality of care, safety, and patient satisfaction scores. She has received praise from the Emergency Department Medical Director as being one of the strongest Charge Nurses on the unit. Her ability to maintain flow, safety, and positivity at the same time makes her an asset to this organization. With this in mind, this nurse serves as a Nurse Navigator within the department to ensure patients are evaluated by providers in the quickest in safest manner possible. She utilizes her knowledge, skills, and creative thinking to address patient needs and prevent bottlenecks or long wait times, in collaboration with all team members of the Emergency Department.

She is able to anticipate the needs of her patients and their family members. She includes family members in her everyday patient care. She realizes that the care of her patients also involves the care of the entire family. She has won the Living Our Values Quarterly Honor Roll Award for Safety within the Emergency Department after stepping into action during a recent hurricane that severely impacted the coast of North Carolina. With short notification, this nurse created space for an unknown number of patients being transported from outside hospitals. She collaborated with outside departments to ensure patients’ needs were met in a timely, efficient, and safe manner. Not only did she focus on caring for the patients, she ensured the presenting family members were cared for and taken to their loved ones during a time of fear and hardship.

This nurse sets the standard for exceptional nursing care with her outstanding work ethic, her positive teamwork and her excellent mentoring skills. If I could work in a department full of nurses just like this one, I would.