Journey to Magnet

It takes nurses to have a teamlet

ChristianaCare teamlets are forming across ChristianaCare primary care practices. A more-hands-are-better-than-one approach, teamlets include one physician, one nurse practitioner or physician assistant, one registered nurse, three medical assistants and support services staff. These clinical groupings enable practices to “share the care” when appropriate and offer better experiences for patients and employees.

As full teamlets take hold in every practice, all of ChristianaCare primary care practices now have at least one nurse on staff. Having nurses on site at these practices has enabled the implementation of protocolized care, starting with hypertension and annual wellness protocols.

“Initially recruiting nurses for ambulatory care was challenging, because nurses traditionally work in the hospitals. We are now seeing much more interest from nurses who want to know more about working in the outpatient practice experience and want to become part of the primary care world.”

Cynthia Griffin, MS, BSN, RN, CPHQ, CCM, chief nursing officer, community care.

‘Thank you for being there’

“Thank you” — two words so simple to say, yet so powerful to hear. ChristianaCare’s Thank You Project makes gratitude the heart of emotional reunions between patients and caregivers. The joint initiative of our Center for Worklife Wellbeing and Patient Experience enables patients and caregivers to reconnect face-to-face for sharing stories and gratitude after a meaningful experience.

After life-saving treatment for a pulmonary embolism, Devon Stansbury wanted to thank her ChristianaCare team for their compassionate, excellent care. ChristianaCare’s Thank You Project arranged for Stansbury, whose right leg was amputated as part of her care, to meet with her care team. “Watching her walk in here healthy and with her husband is indescribable, you can’t put words to that,” said Emergency Department nurse Laura Giannini, RN, who helped care for Stansbury.

Ethics question? Dial zero!

When it comes to questions of ethics, ChristianaCare nurses are on the front line. Over the past year we have increased the number of nurses who can help caregivers with concerns about a patient’s care or how decisions are being made about it. These ethics screeners are on call 24/7 for questions and consultation; caregivers need only dial zero and ask to be connected to the on-call screener.

Under the leadership of Marvin J.H. Lee, Ph.D., MDiv, MPS, a clinical ethicist who joined us in 2019, we’ve not only trained more ethics nurse screeners, we’ve also enhanced their benefits, offering more training opportunities and compensation for their on-call time.

Nurse screeners on the Ethics Consult Committee:

Pamela Boyd, MSN, RN, CNOR, nurse manager, 6B Medical

Stacey Byam, MSN, RN, PCCN, RNIV, 2B Transitional Surgical Unit

Giulia Marshall deProphetis, MS, BSN, RNII, Wilmington Emergency Department

Brenda Ewen, MSN, RN, CPHRM, Risk Management

Shannon Ferrari, BSN, RN-BC, RNIII, 6B Medical

Mary Manglass, BSN, RN-BC, CEN, RNII, Wilmington Emergency Department

Kathleen Mckee, BSN, RN, CCM, Case Management

Leasha Roy, MSN, APRN, ACCNS-AG, PCCN, 2D Neuro Critical Care Unit

Tara Salvadori, MSN, RN-BC, RNII, Christiana Emergency Department

Tracking incidents to prevent workplace violence

As rates of violence against caregivers grow nationwide, ChristianaCare has a new mechanism to help track and prevent violence and assault across the health system.

Our Report 2 Learn (R2L) incident management system now offers a Workplace Violence reporting option. Kristin Papiro, MSN, RN, CPHQ, CAPA, LSSGB, partnered with ChristianaCare Security, Occupational Safety, Employee Health and Risk Management departments to create the reporting icon that enables caregivers to detail violent incidents at work. This includes verbal, physical and sexual assault and verbal, written and electronic threats. We also make emotional peer support available to caregivers after a workplace violence event.

Two steps to safety

A nurse-led initiative at Christiana and Wilmington hospitals and our Middletown Emergency Department is enhancing the protection of patient information.

Spearheaded by Catherine Shull Fernald, DNP, RN, RNC-OB, NEA-BC, and Christopher Otto, MSN, RN, CHFN, PCCN, CCRN, the new two-step telephone verification process provides each patient’s primary spokesperson with a four-digit code upon inpatient or observation admission. They must provide this code when calling for any subsequent updates, excluding exchange of demographic information.