Nurse to Nurse Keeping Nurses Informed Happy and Healthy

Inside this issue Shared Governance ............ 1 CNO Editorial ................... 2-3 Shared Governance ............ 4 Shared Governance ............ 5 Request for Consideration .. 6 Nurse Driven Protocol ........ 7 American Heart Assoc ........ 7 Vizient Residency Prgm ...... 8 NICU Breast Milk Mgmt ...... 9 Frankly Florence ............... 10 Welcome to the Team ...... 11

Nov / Dec 2016 Volume 1, Issue 4

Nurses

You Can Make a Difference!!

Staff Nurses, Shared Governance is here to serve YOU! In the past when nurses have been asked “who makes decisions in regards to nursing?”, the answer has been “nursing management makes the decisions”. This is because up until now, our hospital councils were composed mostly of management rather than staff nurses. Since our hospital restructure, management has been phased out of these councils and all councils are now comprised of staff nurses. This is a huge step toward becoming a nurse driven facility to better reflect magnet status. As a result, Shared Governance Nursing Coordinating Council (SGNCC) is pro-posing a restructure to better fit the current goals of the hospital. This is where YOU as nurses come in to help with the decision.

The Goal:

To align shared governance councils with the magnet model and the

4 pillars of empirical outcomes.

Streamline communication among Nursing Executive Council (NEC),

SGNCC, shared governance councils, and existing unit based councils.

Establish unit councils throughout the hospital to improve communi-

cation to bedside nurses

We need your feedback!! Please attend one of the Town Hall Meetings on January 10th and 12th where we will explain the restructure proposal and provide surveys for feedback. As part of this restructure, council meeting dates have been rearranged to aid in better communication and organization. Keep your eyes peeled for emails regarding new meeting times and more information about the restructure proposal! GO LIVE will be in February 2017.

WE NEED

YOU!!!!!

Nursing Leadership Redesign

The AU Health Nursing Leadership team and I are pleased to communicate re-cent revisions to the Nursing Organizational Structure. We believe the struc-ture that has been implemented will be of great benefit to you and the patients we serve. We also believe the structure supports Shared Governance, continu-al staff and leader development and very importantly, quality clinical out-comes. It is our goal to create a Nursing Organization which provides an environment for your continued professional and educational development and mentorship, supporting your participation in clinical, evidence-based decision-making and creating the best experience for patients. To that end, we have examined our current structure against leading practices put forth by the American Organi-zation of Nurse Leaders, the ANCC Magnet Framework, and the Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing Report. We also met with each Nurse Manager, Assistant Nurse Manager and Educator along with considering nursing staff feedback from our recent Employee Engagement survey for recommendations to our organization structure. Over the course of the past many years’ organizational changes, financial re-quirements and leadership attrition has led to inconsistent spans of control, roles and responsibilities for nursing leaders and educators. On a number of units, staff nurses were asked to step in to perform certain management activi-ties taking them away from critical patient care. This model and the variation across units has made it difficult for nursing to focus on implementing their quality agenda as well as developing leaders poised to manage the changing healthcare environment. The variation in roles and accountabilities has result-ed in staff and manager dissatisfaction as evidenced by low engagement scores and unacceptable high levels of staff turnover. Of greatest concern however was the inability to make a substantive impact on quality, patient engagement and clinical outcome measures. We also recognized the need to create the in-frastructure to support and facilitate the staff Shared Governance model whereby staff nurses will play a significant role in making changes to their practice which will enhance the patient experience. Simply put, we did not have an organizational infrastructure that reflected the new healthcare and employee environments. As an academic medical center, we have a significant mandate to provide care for high risk patients experiencing significant illness and trauma while simul-taneously meeting our important educational mission. The evolving landscape of healthcare is quite challenging and our organization need to also evolve to meet these challenges. Specifically, we are creating a model which:

Supports shared governance, transformational leadership and the Mag-net journey

Clearly defines accountabilities Is evidence based and reflects national best practice for academic medi-

cal centers Is competency based (American Organization of Nurse Executives &

Magnet) Reflects “top of license” practice as advocated by the Institute

of Medicine Prominently places the patient at the center of the care model Provides the administrative infrastructure to make substantial improve-

ments in clinical outcomes and quality metrics

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Laura Brower, MSN, RN

Vice President and

Chief Nursing Officer

Augusta University

Medical Center

Associate Dean for

Clinical Affairs

College of Nursing

Augusta University

Is financially prudent, creating the infrastructure for a value-based care model Presents opportunities for career succession in both the administrative and clinical paths and fur-

ther, sets an agenda for competency based leadership development Enables a less hierarchical organizational structure reflective of the fact that the organization is in-

creasing its horizontal integration Creates the infrastructure for a future flexible workforce and a more technology enabled clinical envi-

ronment Balances leaders’ span of control while increasing direct supervision and development of staff in an

effort to improve employee engagement, decrease attrition and improve quality and clinical out-comes

Recognizes and supports the academic affiliation with the Health Sciences and Nursing Colleges Recognizes and supports the evolving interdisciplinary care team

The new Nursing Leadership Re-design became effective in August 2016, at that time we added the following new positions:

12 Clinical Outcome Managers

2 Nurse managers

9 Assistant Nurse Managers

1 Magnet Coordinator

1 Nursing Supervisor

2 Nurse Schedulers Nursing’s metrics that will be measured to determine effectiveness of the new nursing leadership redesign are as follows:

Staff nurse turnover Staff nurse turnover within the first year Patient satisfaction survey Manager engagement survey Staff nurse engagement survey Nurse sensitive quality measures:

■ Falls ■ Falls with injury ■ Hospital acquired pressure ulcers ■ CAUTIs ■ CLABSIs ■ VAPS

Listed below is the Nursing Organizational Chart Sections that were redesigned based on the new Nursing Re-design in August 2016.

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Cynthia PruettNurse Executive - IT

Laura BrawerChief Nursing Officer

Kimberly BassoDirector - Women & Children's291.6 FTE

Mark SchreiberDirector - ED & Critical Care430.1 FTE

Michelle HoehnDirector - Adult Inpatient413.6 FTE +125 People

Patti RunyonDirector - Professional Practice & Education34.2 FTE

ED – 140.7ECC – 6.3

Observation -14.6(161.6 FTE)

3 ANM

SICU – 41.7Shock/Trauma –

42.9(84.6 FTE)

2 ANM

MICU/RRT –73.1(73.1 FTE)

2 ANM

CCU – 16.1CIU – 2.9

6 Cardiology – 39.3Central Tele – 17.2

(75.5 FTE)2 ANM

Division Educator*

1.5

COM4 FTE

Senior Secretary

3 FTE

*

BH Inpt – 26BH ED Suite – 9.3

(35.3 FTE)

Perinatal68.7 FTE1 ANM

4 CHOG – 34.7 FTE5CHOG – 39.5 FTE

(74.2 FTE)1 ANM

NICU/ICN – 92ECMO/Transp – 6

(98 FTE)2 ANM

PICU – 38 PIMCU – 5.4

ECMO/Transp – 7.2(50.6 FTE)

1 ANM

COM 3 FTE

Division Educator*

0.5

Senior Secretary

2.5 FTE 4 East – 6.73 North – 34.83 West – 55.9

(97.4 FTE)2 ANM

5 West – 44.86 South – 27

8 South – 25.4(97.2 FTE)

2 ANM

4South – 45.27N Transplant –

19.5(64.7 FTE)

1 ANM

4West – 47.87 South – 41.5

(89.3 FTE)2 ANM

5 Onc – 39.5BMT – 25.5

(65 FTE)2 ANM

Resource Pool 125 People

1 ANMDischarge Lounge

COM 5 FTE

Division Educator*

1.5

Senior Secretary

3 FTE

*

Nursing IT Staff

Adult/Peds VAT – 21.2

Professional Practice

Quality/Safety

Education

AHA Training

Diabetic Educator 1.0 FTE

Core Educators

4.0 FTE

WOCN - 3

* = Anticipate Increase in FTE with 2017 Budget

Shared Governance Nurse Coordinating Council

Chair - Kathryn Mathis

Nursing Education Council

Chair - Janice Wilson janwilson@augusta.edu Co-Chair - Jennifer Gillooly jgillooly@augusta.edu Nursing Informatics Council Chair - Karen Wilson kawilson@augusta.edu Co-Chair - Amber Godsey agodsey@augusta.edu Special Projects Council Chair - Kim Wood kwood@augusta.edu Co-Chair - Katie Stephens kastephens@augusta.edu Evidence Based Practice Council Chair - Linda Wise lwise@augusta.edu Nursing Professional Practice Council Chair - Godeharda Torda-Velencia gvalencia@augusta.edu Co-Chair - Gurine Davis gudavis@augusta.edu

Nursing Performance Improvement Council Chair - Angelique Vowell avowell@augusta.edu Co-Chair—Erica Broadbelt ebroadbelt@augusta.edu Clinical Ladder Council Chair - Josh Randall New_clinical_ladder_council@ augusta.edu Co-Chair - Latoya Tyler ltyler@augusta.edu

Nursing Shared Governance

Nursing Education Council defines, implements, evaluates and maintains educational standards that promote professional growth development and ongoing clinical competency for staff. The Nursing Education Council meets on the 4th Thursday of each month in the Dogwood Room (within Terrace Dining) from 9:30-10:30 a.m. The Nursing Education Council is pleased to announce that new arterial bundle kits for A-Line insertion have been approved and will be dispersed to the ICU’s and ED within 4-6 weeks. These kits were created by physicians and nursing staff to ensure that the equipment needed for arterial access is readily available in one kit. In other news, a new Adult Enteral Nutrition and Oral Supplement floor stock plan has been implemented. Now, you can expect to see floor stocked bins with the 3 most popular en-teral feeds on each of your units. In addition to this, each unit will have 2 types of boost stocked in each unit’s nutrition room. While on the subject of nutrition, the Nursing Education Council has learned that during recent audits, the Hospital received a citation for patient refrigerators. We all know that it is Joint Commission season and we do not want to receive citations. Here’s how you can easily prevent that from happening on your units: Document the refrigerator/freezer temperature daily, dis-card open sodas/milk/juice etc., DO NOT allow patient’s food from meal trays or food from outside the hospital to be placed in refrigerators, if it has entered the patient’s room. If it has not en-tered the patient’s room, then it may be placed in the refrigera-tor and MUST be labeled with patient’s name and date and it ex-pires after two days. After food has expired it must be removed from refrigerator and discarded. We encourage you to take pride and actively participate on your units so that you can benefit Au-gusta University Hospital.

Nursing Informatics Council creates, implements, evaluate and maintains the clinical documentation used by nursing staff at AU Health. Additionally they serve to provide input to pro-jects throughout the organization which have an impact on nurs-ing and require IT support. The Council meets on the 3rd Thurs-day of each month from 10:00 - 12:00 in BT 1810 (CHOG Confer-ence Room).

To kick-off this fall season, the Nursing Clinical Informatics Council has started the Documentation Optimization Project. This will be a yearlong project in which the council will focus on 3 different topics. The council formed sub-committee workgroups to focus on each topic as follows: Education, Docu-mentation, and Project Workgroups. The Education Workgroup will focus on implementing new standardized methods of educa-tion delivery, in order to successfully engage employees of all generations. The Documentation Workgroup will focus on the

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over-availability of documentation and work on stream-lining charting processes. The Projects Workgroup will focus on rolling out different projects including finalizing the “Ticket to Ride” which will replace the PAMPER sheet. It will be a real-time form printed from the elec-tronic chart before a patient is transported. They will also work on finalizing standardized flow-sheets to re-place power forms during downtime. This is just touch-ing the surface of what’s to come with Documentation Optimization so stay tuned for more information!

Clinical Ladder Council recognizes and rewards ex-pertise in clinical practice for the registered nurse em-ployed as a staff nurse at AU Health. The Council is de-signed to ensure quality patient care as well as to pro-mote recruitment and retention of experienced nurses through salary incentives and opportunities for profes-sional growth. CNIII and CNIV nurses may serve as port-folio reviewers and mentors related to the Clinical Lad-der. The Council meets on the last Thursday of each month from 8:30-10:30 in the Cardiology Conference Room.

The next Clinical Ladder submission cycle is November 2016. Mentors are available for New Applicants and are encouraged. Please read templates carefully and review templates after completion to ensure all information is included. Templates are revised periodically and re-quirements can be changed. Clinical ladder books will be read from November 1 to December 1 in room BA 5301.

Special Projects Council is to inspire and engage nursing staff to celebrate their achievements. We encour-age increased participation in Shared Governance and also contribute to our community through benevolence. The Special Projects Council meets on the 3rd Thursday of each month from 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. in the Moretz Li-brary.

The Special Projects Committee is responsible for han-dling all of the exciting events that happen in the hospital for nurses! We take on the responsibility of planning and fundraising for the annual Nursing Gala every year and we coordinate the Golden Harvest Food Drive. We are responsible for presentation of the Daisy Award. We also plan fun raffles and giveaways throughout the year to help support these events. Coming up in December we will be starting our annual Christmas basket raffle with the basket being presented to the winner on December 15th. So be looking for those raffle tickets coming soon!

Evidence Based Practice Council assists nurses with the implementation of evidence based practice as well as mentoring staff to understand, evaluate and conduct nursing research. The Council meets on the 2nd Tuesday of each month from 8:30-10:00 in room BC 1045.

The Evidence-Based Practice Council was excited to have members of the council represent Augusta University Hospital at the Magnet Convention in Orlando, Florida in October. In other news, the council had nurse practition-er students as guests in October and they spoke about their current Diabetic Educator Project. The students are working to gather important data behind having a Dia-betic Educator for adults with Type 2 Diabetes as well as children with Type 1 Diabetes.

Nursing Professional Practice Council implements and maintains standards of clinical nursing practice and patient care consistent with evidence-based practice and requirements of regulatory agencies. NPP Council imple-ments and maintains standards of clinical nursing prac-tice and patient care consistent with evidence-based practice and requirements of regulatory agencies. The Council meets the 3rd Thursday of each month from 8:30 - 9:30 a.m. in the Dogwood Room (within Terrace Din-ing).

The Professional Practice Committee has been busy over the last few months discussing the new nurse driven pro-tocol regarding indwelling catheter removal. This proto-col will be available in the future on Cerner. We have been working with pharmacy to develop a system to track the delivery of medications on the floor to facilitate a more efficient delivery of care. RN support programs are available through the EAP (Employee Assistance Pro-gram). The first RN support meeting topic is STRESS! For more info contact EAP at (706)721-0757.

Nursing Performance Improvement Council moni-tors the appropriateness and effectiveness of the care provided by the nursing staff while assessing and ensur-ing compliance with established standards of core and practice. The Pressure Ulcer Prevention (PUP) Council and the Safe Patient Handling Council serve as ad hoc committees to the Nursing PI Council. The Council meets on the 3rd Thursday of each month from 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. in the Dogwood Room (within Terrace Dining).

The Performance Improvement Council has sent a Pro-ject Charter to Dr. Delsberger and Dr. Coule regarding inadequate supplies to nursing units which poses a prob-lem with patient satisfaction as well as nurse satisfaction. The council is also working with the Quality Management team to ensure that new policies are approved and dis-persed to nurses prior to implementing. Recently, there have been some failures in communication and this council, as well as the other councils, have been working hard to turn that around for the better of our staff, pa-tients, and hospital as a whole.

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Bedside Nurses, We Want to Hear From

YOU! As a bedside nurse myself, I can say there is a vicious cycle amongst us and it’s time to do something about it, nurses. Let me give you a scenario. Let’s say you as a bedside nurse come to work and find out there is a new policy put into place that affects your workflow. You follow the policy for several weeks but find that it’s not working very well for you. You talk to your fellow coworkers and they feel the same way. Typi-cally in this situation, complaints are made amongst each other and possible solutions are even discussed, but no one knows how to get this information to the right person in order to make change happen. Nurses continue to complain that their “voice is never heard” which results in decreased nurse satisfaction and ul-timately burn out. Several weeks later another new workflow policy is introduced and the cycle starts again. Nurses, it’s time to stop this cycle. Here at Augusta University Medical Center, Our vi-sion is to be a top-tier university that is a destination of choice for education, health care, discovery, crea-tivity, and innovation. You may wonder “What does this mean for me?”. This means that your ideas as a nurse are incredibly valuable to this institution’s suc-cess which is why it’s so important that your voice be heard. This all being said to introduce to you, a new “Request for Consideration” (RFC) link coming soon to the PAWS webpage. This link will take you to a form that will allow you as the bedside nurse to bring topics of issue, possible solutions, or best work prac-tices from your unit to the Nursing Executive Council (NEC) and the Shared Governance Nursing Coordi-nating Council (SGNCC). These hospital wide councils meet once a month and your topics will be discussed during the meetings. During this time, the councils will decide which of our Hospital Shared Governance Committees will be assigned to review your topic. You can expect to hear back from the NEC or the SGNCC with follow-up information after review. Nurses are widely known for their innovative minds and critical thinking skills, but have often experi-enced barriers getting their ideas out there. Nurses NOW is YOUR time! Here is your avenue to speak up and let your voices be heard! Be the change you want to see at Augusta University Medical Center!

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Department of Nursing

Shared Governance Request for Consideration

Title of RFC:

Name of Person Submitting Request

Date of Request Submission

Department Submitting Request

Define Your Question Using PICO

Patient and Population How would you describe a group of patients similar to yours? What are the most important characteristics of the patient? This may include the primary problem, disease, or co-existing conditions. Sometimes the sex, age, or ethnicity of a patient might be relevant to the diagnosis or treatment of a disease.

Intervention Which main intervention, prognostic factor, or exposure are you considering? What do you want to do for the patient? Prescribe a drug? Order a test? Order surgery? What factor may influence the prognosis of the patient? Age? Co-existing problems?

Comparison What is the main alternative to compare to the intervention? Are you trying to decide between two drugs, a drug and no medication or placebo, or two diagnostic tests? Your clinical question may not always have a specific comparison.

Outcome What can you hope to accomplish, measure, improve or affect? What are you trying to do for the patient? Relieve or eliminate the symptoms? Reduce the number of adverse events? Improve function or test scores?

Are there resources from nursing journals or other documentation supporting a change in practice? If so, please provide.

For Nurse Executive Council Use Only

Primary Council Ownership

Secondary Council Ownership

Date Directive Given

Follow Up Requested By

Follow up from Nurse Executive Coun-cil to Person Who Originally Submitted Request

The indwelling Urinary Catheter Protocol for Adults was implemented in September. The ordering process

and alert system is in the final stages of development and will be placed in our EMR. Removal of urinary

catheter based on this protocol will empower the bedside nurse to be engaged in decreasing urinary cath-

eter associated urinary tract infections and provided safe quality care to our patients at AUMC.

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American Heart Association

Looking for BLS, ACLS, PALS, NRP, or S.T.A.B.L.E clas-

ses? This link also provides dates for instructor classes.

This is your link for all of your certification and

recertification needs.

https://www.trainingcentertechnologies.com/

GeorgiaHealth/CourseEnrollment.aspx

Hit the drop down box and choose “show all courses”.

In the payment area pick “pay day of course” Please

make sure you do not choose a course that says NO

DISCOUNT FOR GRU EMPLOYEES. You will have to

pay for this course. For employees just hit save.

The Inaugural Vizient/AACN Nurse Residency

Program was launched September 21, 2016 for

46 New Graduate Nurses that have 0 to 6

months experience. The program is designed as

a monthly seminar session that complements

both nursing orientation and specialty training

that gives the new nursing graduate the oppor-

tunity to gain leadership skills, learn the profes-

sional nursing role, and focus on quality patient

care through a one year curriculum program. In

addition, the new graduate is able to be men-

tored and supported not only by a preceptor at

the unit-level but also a facilitator, content ex-

perts, the CNO, a program coordinator, the unit

nurse manager, core educators, and an academic

partner throughout the program. The Vizient

program is the result of collaboration between

UHC and the American Association of Colleges of

Nurses (AACN) that began in 1999 to address

the nursing shortage. The Vizient/AACN Nurse

Residency Program has become the gold stand-

ard and well published by the Institute of Medi-

cine. Research has shown that new graduates

that complete nurse residency programs have

increased: satisfaction rates, retention rates,

confidence, competence, leadership abilities,

professionalism, interprofessional team build-

ing, socialization skills, prioritization and organ-

izational skills.

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Miranda Alexander

Kailey Belote

Noha Bakr

Lacy Blair

Bonnie Boutwell

Allie Bridges

Caitlyn Burke

Yesi Castro

Anna Dieringer

Wanda Elam

Savia Fryer

Yafiet Ghebrezghi

Yonde Gibson

Kendall Green

Meagan Hardy

Katherine Howard

Ashley Hull

Nellie Isom

Cindy Juhasz

Lucy Kelley

Brianna King

Lacy Lally

Melissa Lane

Sara Lee

Anna Long

Jamie Luke

Sophia Martinez

Dijonnai McBride

Morgan McClendon

Chelsea McGahee

Dakota McLendon

Hannah Melancon

Libby Novak

Karen Pacheco

Erin Palmer

Hinali Patel

Kimberly Peel

Clair Reed

Anthony Rhoads

Jacey Salley

Nicole Sela

Falyun Slagle

Bria Thomas

Jing Weng

Tyler Williams

Megan Wray

Welcome Fall 2016 VIZIENT/AACN Nurse Residents!!

2016 Inaugural Class Members

NICU reports no errors since implementing breast milk management solution The initiative is part of a larger effort at Augusta University Health, a Cerner ITWorks client, to mod-ernize its nursing solutions. The Children’s Hospital of Georgia (CHOG) is us-ing Cerner technology to ensure babies in the or-ganization’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) receive the cor-rect nourishment by au-tomating the manage-ment of both mother’s milk and formula.

Since the Augusta, Ga., organization implemented Cerner’s Human Milk and Formula Management solution in December 2015, CHOG has achieved 100% accuracy in the management of breast milk.

Using the solution, “the NICU is able to confirm that the right baby gets the right breast milk at the right time, every time,” said Ruth Wilson, nurse manager at CHOG. “Families can find comfort that their baby is getting the proper nourishment even in a difficult situation.”

In addition, between December 2015 and June 2016, nurses steadily reduced instances when milk had expired by 63 per-cent and instances when milk was not property matched with the right baby by 25 percent.

‘Catching nursing up to the 21st century’

Chief Nursing Officer Laura Brower, MSN, RN, said the solu-tion is part of a larger effort to update nursing-oriented solu-tions at the 154-bed facility.

“We’re catching nursing up to the 21st century,” she said. “It’s exciting.”

Patient safety is a top priority at the CHOG, which has the only Level IV NICU (highest level) in an 18-county region in Georgia and South Carolina.

CHOG is a part of Augusta University Health, which has an ITWorks alignment with Cerner called the Jaguar Collabora-tive. Clinical leaders from AU Health worked with the team members from the collaborative to implement the solution.

Eliminating manual double checks

Leading up to the implementation of the barcode scanning solution, nurses had to manually double check more than 350 bottles of milk a day to make sure they fed mothers’

breast milk and formula to the right baby in the NICU. Such matching is important because of the potential for allergic reactions, which can be especially dangerous for babies in a NICU. Indeed, the Joint Commission has deemed matching mother’s milk with the wrong baby to be a “never” event. 1

In addition, automating breast milk management is an im-portant step in the organization’s work toward reaching Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model.

Augusta University Health reached Stage 6 in July 2016 - less than two years after the formation of the Jaguar Collabora-tive. (Initially the organization was at Stage 4.)

Easy-to-follow workforce

Through Cerner’s milk management solution, nurses also save time at each point in the handling process - collection, storage, preparation and administration.

Not surprisingly, nurses love the solution.

Prior to implementation, the Milk Lab team used hand-written documents to track breast milk and formula.

Initially, the Milk Lab team expressed concerns about using a computer to track milk and formula. Post implementation, however, they are impressed with the new workflow.

“The system was so easy to follow that our Milk Lab team had no issues learning the software, and in fact, they love it,” Wilson said. “They could not imagine any other way.

Better information for mothers

The system also allows mothers to be “intimately involved” in managing their breast milk at the hospital, Wilson said.

“The mother labels the initial bottle, and any questions about the breast milk can easily be looked up in the system,” she said.

Nurses can use the Cerner system to tell mothers how much milk they have stored, the dates the milk was pumped and how much milk their child is receiving.

For more information

About how nurses are using the solution to make care safet for patients, please visit the Value Stage at Cerner Health Conference.

About Cerner’s Human Milk and Formula Management solution, please contact Meg Citarella.

About ITWorks alignments, please contact Jason Hubbard.

Article provided by Jennifer Peterson, Cerner Corp., Jaguar Collaborative

9

Frankly Florence

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Florence Nightingale will be forever remem-bered for her vision of nursing from a domes-tic service to that of a profession. Her ideas of advocacy, leadership, and nursing practice in the 19th century is still an important part of our everyday practice. Nightingale’s ideas of advocacy for patients as well as the nursing profession changed the face of nursing forev-er. Her concepts and ideas have stood the test of time in an every changing industry that we know as health care today. Nightin-gale not only fought to implement advocacy for her patients but also for the profession of nursing. We as nurses must take what she started and continue to fan the flame. In an every changing industry nurses function eve-ryday as patient advocates. We strive to give our patients and families the best care possi-ble with every interaction. We need to re-member that we must also be advocates of our profession. In order to do this it is imper-ative that we speak up and let our voices be heard! Nightingale proved that advocacy equals power to caring nurses. Use this pow-er to help better your nursing practice. From

bedside nurses to nursing management we must all be advocates for our profession to make changes that will better our practice as a whole. Better nursing practice will yield better patient outcomes. This section of our newsletter will be entitled Frankly Florence. We want to hear from you. What are your questions, concerns, fears, or ideas about nursing practice at AU Health? What can we do to improve our nursing prac-tice? We will be answering your questions monthly in our newsletter. Your feedback is crucial to molding our nursing practice just as Florence Nightingale did in the 19th centu-ry. Please email your questions to NURSETONURSE@augusta.edu.

Tamala Anderson, RN 4 South Surgery Quanda Ball, RN MICU Regan Brockman, RN Float Pool Catherine Cave, RN 5C Peds Surgery Keondra Cook, RN Float Pool Nancy Doby, RN Pediatric OR Candy Gault, RN 3 South Adult Psych Kala Johnson, RN CHOG Intermed Care Mary Kennedy, RN Ctr of Nsg Education Christopher Kinsler, RN Adult Hemo Lab Teresa Lindsey, RN 4C Pediatric Medicine Erica Lucas, RN Float Pool Natalie Nicholls-Edwards, RN 7N Transplant Victoria Roldan, RN 7 South Natalie Smith, RN Kidney Transplant Katie Streeter, RN Shock Trauma Angel Waldo, RN 7 South Vicky Walton, RN 5C Pediatric Surgery Shelby Adams, RN Emergency Medicine David Bell, RN Emergency Medicine Carol Brody, RN Nursing Admin Gary Clark, RN 3 West Neurology De’Monica Cooper, RN Float Pool Amanda Dunaway, RN 7 West Obstetrics Sheneka Fair, RN 5N Oncology Vestel Freshour, RN 6S Intermediate Med Angela Houmiel, RN 7P Perinatal Ops Torri Hunter, RN Float Pool Jason Knight, RN MICU Kaylee LaChance, RN Operating Room Jasmine Lewis, RN 5S Stem Cell Trans Cara Lynch, RN 4E Epilepsy Unit Brittany Pearson, RN Emergency Medicine Janet Pleiman, RN 5 South Oncology John Rainchuso, RN 3 West Neurology Jorge Serna, RN NICU Pamela Teague, RN 4 South Surgery Jennina Ting, RN MICU Jordan Vincent, RN 6 South Intermed Card Sheila Wightman, RN Emergency Medicine Holly Zerwig, RN Emergency Medicine Kara Blackburn, RN Float Pool Tiffany Casper, RN MICU Tonya Hebert, RN NICU Carolina Holley, RN Emergency Medicine Gwendolyn Holt, RN Float Pool

April Hood, RN 7 West Labor/Delivery Fiona Lysse, RN 5 South Oncology Christian Moncrief, RN MICU Danny New, RN 5 West Medicine Kojo Sarfo, RN Psych ED Suite Mori Vassar, RN 4 South Surgery Antoinette Afriyie, RN 3 South Adult Psych Charlice Anthony, RN 5 North Oncology Terrilyn Daniels, RN 7 West Labor/Delivery Lucille De Jesus Martin, RN Emergency Medicine Suzanne Dunivent, RN NICU Shara Fairman, RN SICU April Glosson, RN 6S Intermed Cardio Rebecca Hensey, RN NICU Thomas Kephart, RN Emergency Medicine April Moore, RN 7 South Sarah New, RN Operating Room Jessica Powell, RN 7 South William Vickers, RN 3 West Neurology Kristen Welch, RN Emergency Medicine Courtney, Williams, RN Operating Room

Welcome to the Team!