One Nursing Unit Wins FREE Chipotle & Starbucks!
Congratulations to Hackensack Meridian Health Raritan Bay Medical Center ICU on being voted the nursing unit of august 2022!
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Prizes:
- Chipotle for the entire unit!
- Starbucks for the entire unit!
- Award plaque to display on your unit.
August 2022 Winner:
HACKENSACK MERIDIAN HEALTH RARITAN BAY MEDICAL CENTER ICU
Previous Winners:
July 2022 winner - Brigham and Women's Hospital NICU
June 2022 winner - Covenant Healthcare 5N/M Orthopedic Unit
April 2022 winner - Rush Memorial Hospital, Med Surg Unit
Nominated by: Brooke
"The MedSurg Unit at Rush Memorial Hospital is awesome! We are a small critical access hospital in Rushville, Indiana. Being such, my employees do a wonderful job utilizing the resources that they are given to provide exceptional care to our patients. They go above and beyond what is expected of them to provide the best care possible. Their teamwork is something that every nursing unit should strive for! They are always willing to help each other out, whether it be with patients or covering shifts for each other. As a small facility, there is not a huge amount of employees to be able to reach out to in need, and they do a fantastic job of working together to make our facility successful! I've never seen a group of nurses that care so much about their patients and co-workers. They go above and beyond for this team and this award would be a fantastic way to recognize their efforts!"
March 2022 winner - Hackensack Meridian Raritan Bay - Perth Amboy, Green 5
February 2022 winner - Emory Healthcare 7G Complex Medicine
January 2022 - Jennie Edmundson Hospital, Critical Care
December 2021 - Children's Hospital Colorado, Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders
Nomination: I’m absolutely in awe of my coworkers and they play a huge part in the reason why I'm excited to go to work every single day. Ever since starting as a new grad nurse in August after graduating from Purdue, I’ve felt supported, encouraged, and empowered by all of them. My coworkers work tirelessly to heal sick cancer kiddos who are in the hardest battles of their lives. They not only give incredible cancer care to their patients but also support their families as they go through this extremely difficult journey. As a new nurse off orientation, I've never felt scared to ask questions or for help. The other day one of my coworkers noticed that I was overwhelmed by a new diagnosis for one of my 2-year-old patients as well as the stress of being a new nurse. She immediately pulled me aside out of her busy day to encourage me, listen to me, and give advice. Our work can be emotionally, mentally, and even physically draining. There are many ups and downs of being a pediatric hematology/oncology nurse, but my coworkers share the highs and lows with me and keep my tank full. This is just one of the countless examples of my coworkers going above and beyond. My coworkers, patients, and Children's Hospital of Colorado have assured me that I am meant to be a nurse and I am living my dream. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about just how incredible my job is and how phenomenal my coworkers are! Thank you for taking the time to read about how special my coworkers are. If you are a nurse, thank YOU for all that you do! Nurses truly are the heart of healthcare. -Colleen, BSN, RN
November 2021 - Boston Medical Center, 7 West
- Nomination: “The staff on 7West are amazing- individually and as a team. The majority of the staff on the floor opened the unit in 2014 as a neuro/ortho/surgical unit- which then transformed into taking things like trauma surgeries post-op, neovaginalplasties, facial feminization, infectious diseases, and whatever else they threw at us, we took. The 7West Staff are one big happy (yet mildly dysfunctional) family, support each other, call each other out when it needs to be done, but will always be there when needed.” - Krizstina C.
NURSING UNIT OF OCTOBER 2021 - Grant Medical Center, Trauma Intermediate Care Unit
Read all about what makes this unit AMAZING straight from the nurses who work there!
“Our unit has been dealing with a staffing shortage for more than one year now. We are in Columbus, Ohio where gun violence has been ravaging our city and our hospital alone has seen more than 500 gunshot victims in one year. On top of that, when COVID first began, our manager was pulled from our unit to manage another floor and up until about two months ago, we were without a manager and assistant managers for more than a year. While without a manager, our clinical leads, fill-in charge nurses, and senior nurses stepped up to run our floor independently and we rocked it! Our lack of support in numbers hasn’t affected our ability to give excellent patient care. We are the prime example of teamwork, hard work, and dedication to patients. Even working short-staffed, we were still awarded excellent customer satisfaction scores on patient surveys and have been noted to go “above and beyond.” Our unit is busy - we are labeled an intermediate level of care, but our patients are typically labeled “critical” in other ICUs in our hospital system. We always, always help each other and when there’s an emergency, people come running from each hallway to help. You are never alone and you’ll never have to face any circumstance by yourself.
We also began pooling our own personal money to buy extra supplies for our patients that our hospital does not routinely stock (mirrors, actual hairbrushes, shampoo and conditioner, mini fans, smell good lotion, decent razors, reading glasses, coloring books, and activity books, etc.) to make sure our patients are as comfortable as possible during their stay with us.
Our unit is currently turning a medical-surgical hallway on our floor into one of our own intermediate hallways, so we have been cross-training those medical-surgical nurses to work with us for the transition. On top of that, we’ve also recently hired 20 new nurses, all of which are still in training. We are proud to hear “I feel so lucky to work with all of you and I cannot imagine working anywhere as supportive as here” from all of our new associates.
We have been supporting staff during COVID as well. Several of our nurses volunteered to cross-train to our ICU/CCU to help during the pandemic. We took turns rotating down there to help out our friends in the ICU/CCU and we were recognized as some of the most substantial additions to their patient care. It only helped strengthen the bond we have with that unit. In addition, our emergency department has been getting slammed and our nurses have been floating there as extra support staff for them. Working in that unfamiliar environment is noble and their help down there was not gone unnoticed.
Our PSAs have been so flexible during this transition to an all intermediate care unit as well. They have also been flexing up to take heavy patient loads and rotating throughout the hallways so all get experience working on the intermediate side.
And maybe most heart-warming of all, we have also proven our dedication to each other. We have had several staff members who have had personal tragedies this year and we as a unit made sure to never let them feel alone. We have rallied to provide them food, get them gift cards, cover shifts, and help with whatever they needed. We are a family. We always have been and we always will be. Our teamwork goes beyond our patients and we are so lucky to have one another.”
NURSING UNIT OF SEPTEMBER 2022: SPARTANBURG MEDICAL CENTER, PAVILION 6
Nomination:
1. We have the best teamwork. No one is ever alone in my unit. If you need help before you’ve even asked for it someone has already noticed and is ready to help you catch up and take care of your patients! Our team is a family and we really love each other. There are so many days when I leave after a rough day or just a busy day thinking and this is why I love working here. The people I work with are amazing and I am proud to say they are my family and friends!
2. We are a Covid hot floor, we have an amazing group of nurses and nursing assistants. We come to work with positive thoughts and love for our patients. We treat our patients as if they are our own family, we are all they have. We all work together to have the best for our patients even if for a short moment to hold a hand before they pass or just to let them know they are not alone.
3. Our unit has run short-staffed through the pandemic. We have all worked overtime to provide care for our patients. We’ve transformed from a Med/Surg unit to a step-down ICU in order to improve patient outcomes. We have changed with the times and our teamwork is undefeated. Even travel nurses tell us we have the best unit.
