Monday, April 11, 2011

The Miracle Floor - Teamwork at its Best

I just have to share...this note was sent to me last week by Stephanie Boresow,Unit Secretary on 5N - Rehab Unit:

I thought you might enjoy reading about one of many times when eight or more departments worked together well to make a successful day happen on 5 North. Hope it's ok that I'm doing so in an email. As the Unit Secretary for 5 North - I get to see when many different people come together to do great things, and for that I'm truly grateful to be working exactly where I am. :)We had three admits yesterday afternoon that ended up all needing to come at once. A great number of people made that happen seamlessly.

First, Paulette Johnson in Environmental Services did four STAT cleans, all on her own, as her co-worker, Yolanda Ross made several trips to get extra materials - when we had to move people around on our floor to accommodate three new patients.

Next, Ginger Taylor (Virginia) performing a newer role today as stand-in Admitting Liaison - made sure all orders were done correctly and completely, contacted all necessary physicians and insurance companies, helped sort out which nurses would take which patients, and just dove in so many times to help any of us who needed it.

Both Shirley Graham and Linda Carmona in Patient Access kept pace with 5 North as we moved patient rooms, asked for pre-admitting status, and then got them all at once (lots of paper work!)

Loretta Lackey in Central Services made sure we had everything we needed from CS as our needs kept changing - she even ran some mepilexdressings to us by hand.

Georgie Agim and Linda West - both 5N RN's - were able to do their usual "magic" in patient care with full patient loads, a shift change, and three new, consecutive admits. The nurses on 5 North are truly amazing, and they were able to give patients the attention they deserve because everybody worked together so well to make it happen.

Sherri Britt, 5N PCA, deserves special mention. One of our three new admits decided she was no longer interested in staying at the hospital. Ginger and Sherri gently talked to the patient who was irate. It was brilliant, helpful, kind and perfectly timed.

Courtney Scanlon, our pharmacist for the day, checked on us all day because she knew we would be receiving several patients at once. The Pharmacy staff that stays on the 5th floor are always so helpful at providing immediate order entry as well as pharmaceutical information.

Finally, we have our three therapy teams who are the jewels of the Rehab floor: Janice Balke, our PT Tech, made sure each new admit had the proper equipment, as she was also keeping up with our current patients for Group therapy today (when even your wife Jenny got to see how busy we all were!)

Both Marta Sanorand and Jacob Neece(PT) took care of several delicate patient situations in their calm, professional manner and still squeezed in their new evals.

Penny Murphy and Juliet Arndt in OT did their own magic for their departments, while Melissa James and Cathy Burns in Speech Therapy worked to figure out how to get more evals done when we were a few Speech therapists short today.

What I hope I've done is show how during a mere five-hour time slot so much cooperation and teamwork truly happens in this hospital and especially on 5North. Our management team of Jeff Lee, Coco Gonzalez, and Jennifer Leonard are always available and right there with us as we work together to get everybody the best care possible. They lead by example, have the respect of their staffs, and jump in to help us all the time. We all work so well together because of decisions they are constantly making.

I was just so proud to work here yesterday. Yesterday was true teamwork at its best. A healthcare multi-disciplinary team is what any of us would want for ourselves and our own families. Several people like to call 5North"the Miracle floor" - and in so many ways, it usually is.

Thanks for your time in reading this Giant ICU. I just believe that when people come together to do great things - it's a crime not to call attention to it. Have a good rest of your week, Scott! (If someone could pass this on to supervisors in CS, Pharmacy, ES, and Inpatient Admitting, I think they'd like to hear how their staff positively affects 5 North too - thanks.)

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