Letter from the BWPO Chairman
Dear Colleagues:
We began a journey together five years ago toward the vision we created for our department of nursing: excellent care to patients and families with the best staff in the safest environment. Through the work we have done together on this intentional journey, our department is stronger than ever before. That is in large part due to “the voice of the nurse” in all roles shaping and influencing the practice environment.
We have created a portfolio of work that defines excellent nursing practice at BWH, and we continue on our journey to building and maintaining a healthy work environment characterized by effective and respectful communication, true collaboration, authentic leadership and nursing practice excellence all for the purpose of improving patient care. This spring, we have had a chance to reflect on our journey and to celebrate our accomplishments as individuals and as a department during Nurse Recognition Month.
One of the highlights each year is the Essence of Nursing Award, a reflection of how important the care you provide is. In this issue, you will read about how award recipient Karen Politano, BSN, RN, always strives to improve her practice, know each patient and family member and teach nurses new to critical care. In her narrative, we learn about the extra measures she took to care for the family of one particular patient in an individual and specific way. We see examples of excellent nursing practice through Karen and our four exemplary honorees: Sandra Dougal, BSN, RN; Catherine Hogan, MSN, RN; Samantha Leonard, BSN, RN; and Paula Trabucco, RN.
During my annual State of the Department address, we had a chance to look at our accomplishments as a department. We have, in the past five years, established nurse-run integrative care programs, defined characteristics of excellent nursing practice, bolstered patient and family education with interactive TV technology, created programs to support clinical teaching and learning at the bedside, refined the preceptor program and completed multiple initiatives to improve patient safety and quality, such as the rollout of eMAR to Oncology units and hand hygiene initiatives in many units.
In May, we hosted our first Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Visiting Nursing Professor, Joanne Disch, PhD, RN, FAAN, who spoke to us about creating expert teams. I was not surprised when Joanne mentioned that she, in turn, learned from her visits with nurses and interprofessional teams at BWH.
I appreciate the work each of you does every day on behalf of our patients and families. I look forward to continuing this journey with you to create an environment in which we reliably provide excellent care to patients and families with the best staff in the safest environment.