 |
Lorna Abner, BSN, RN
Clinical Nurse Educator, Neurosciece Advanced Care, Miami Valley Hospital
Lorna leads by example with enthusiasm and always puts staff and patients first. She embraces challenges with innovative strategies and works tirelessly to ensure success. She routinely creates and implements activities to develop and improve staff relationships to foster an environment of excellence for our patients, families, and team members. She began and assists with a monthly employee recognition program, which she constantly monitors and tweaks to maintain staff engagement and ensure inclusion with our ancillary partners, and she initiated and arranges monthly celebrations and activities that focus on varying work groups, cultural activities, and nursing/medical themes to promote partnership and excellence. Lorna also organizes cultural themed carry-ins, resident celebrations, and general staff celebrations. Additionally, she was instrumental in leading our unit success with the Dayton Area Heart and Stroke Walk. Many staff members participated, which increased awareness of stroke prevention and treatment within our community. Lorna created and maintains a weekly information huddle for our unit staff and uses her communication, organization, and collaboration skills to enhance our ability to provide excellent patient care. Her demeanor, knowledge, passion, inclusion, and innovation shape and impact staff, patients, families, the unit, and the division of nursing. She is a model of excellence for our organization!
|
 |
Gayle Debord, RN
Clinical Nurse Team Leader, Cardiac Rehabilitation, Atrium Medical Center
Gayle has worked for MRH and AMC for all of her nursing career. She pioneered the Cardiac Rehab Program and consistently keeps track of best practices and scientific evidence for both cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation patients. She effectively relays information to other team members and ensures that patients and other members understand the science behind the practices, so they can deliver the most up to date care and information. She consistently greets each patient by name and addresses family members, sharing any new information with them and making sure they have pertinent information about the duration of the session, that they understand the processes, and that they know what to expect on their journey to recovery. Gayle always treats each person with the utmost respect and thanks them for allowing us to care for them. Safety is her first priority with patients, and she has, on numerous occasions, recognized problems and quickly gotten patients the help they needed. When issues arise, Gayle is the go-to person to ask how to handle a situation, decide the best course of action, and present it to her supervisors in a manner that allows for exchange of ideas.
|
 |
Mike Dunker, BSN, RN
Team Leader/Educator, Behavioral Health IP Unit, Upper Valley Medical Center
Mike is a highly motivated, compassionate nurse who continuously gives of his time and resources to improve nursing. He is dedicated to the long-term outcomes of Behavioral Health patients and provides them with calm, understanding, and non-judgmental care. He also is an insightful educator and assists co-workers when he sees the need. When a question is asked, he will go out of his way to find the answer if he is unsure of the answer himself. Mike is helpful and skilled as a nurse and educator. He has provided leadership and stability through significant nursing workflow and practice changes on his unit, and he coordinates education opportunities for his unit staff, supporting other departments with education as needed. His expertise extends to outside his department, as he is a system-valued resource for his knowledge and calm style of sharing information. Mike uses humor appropriately during teaching situations, which helps bedside leaders understand easier, and he leads with confidence, integrity, compassion, and respect. He also is pursuing higher education to expand his knowledge and increase his impact with nursing and patients. He is a mentor and team player, and demonstrates excellence in all he does.
|
 |
Kristin Jones, BSN, RN
Oasis/Outcomes Nurse, Fidelity Health Care
Kristin is a phenomenal nurse who demonstrates leadership in many different roles. She helps in many different departments and committees in addition to her primary role as a quality administrative nurse at Fidelity. Kristin notices when there is a need and fills it. Another home care nurse once had a schedule full of patients for the day, and a patient needed a different wound vac because of their insurance coverage. To switch out the wound vac, the nurse would have needed to drive an hour out of her way for the new device and then an hour back to the patient. Kristin was already by the warehouse, so she picked up the wound vac and took it to the patient and switched it out for her. This enabled the field nurse to focus on the full day of patients she already had. Kristin didn’t give it a second thought and was happy to do something outside her job duties to help another employee..
|
 |
Kristin Scott, BSN, RN
Nursing Clinical Educator, Miami Valley Hospital
Kristin is highly skilled in an area that treats the sickest of patients. She must also provide ongoing education for an ever-changing health care world involving new meds, equipment, physicians, and staff. Kristin is passionate about setting up each orientee for success. She also places a lot of value in retaining and constantly challenging veteran staff members, and has organized lunch-and-learns to help improve physician-staff relationships. Kristin is quite polished with AIDET and assists with leader rounding. She is not intimidated by collaborating with physicians to achieve the highest standards of patient care. When surgeons were introducing a new device, she met with them and gained a full understanding so that our staff could be prepared. Different directors constantly seek her out as a clinical expert. She listens and advocates to find a common solution to meet everyone’s needs. She also lectures as a content expert for system-wide classes. Kristin cares for patients as if they were her own family members. Her passion, energy, and concern, combined with her active involvement, makes her name well-known at Miami Valley Hospital. She pours her heart and soul into being an educator.
|
|
Amanda Zemmer, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC
APRN - Geriatric Nurse Specialist, Geriatric Program, Miami Valley Hospital
Throughout the many challenges of developing the new Hospital Elder Life Program, Amanda has strived to ensure that the interdisciplinary team, patients and families, and HELP volunteers are current on their education needs. She is partnering with one of the HELP volunteer program community partners, the University of Dayton, to develop a geriatric education platform to support different facets of the HELP program. She also is leading the charge to help all bedside staff better understand the unique needs of older adults. Amanda is ensuring that knowledge, skill, and equipment resources are available and easy to understand and implement. One of the most challenging interventions of focus in 2017, and in 2018, has been improving opportunities for staff to assist patients with physical activities in a safe and timely manner, as older adults commonly lose the ability to perform at least one of their activities of daily living during hospitalization. Amanda ensures that staff input, preferences, evidence, and reason are combined to maximize patient experiences. As a result of rounding, she also has begun the process of transitioning paper and pencil evaluations and orientation content into an electronic format. Her skills of collaboration, clinical expertise, advocacy, and genuine concern for others makes her a wonderful example of a nurse who is committed to “every person every time.”
|
