- Nurses are not average people in average jobs.
- We are much more than our job descriptions.
- We are experts,
- innovators, motivators,
- and supporters.
- We are a caring touch.
- We are a smile at just the right moment.
- Because we see the world,
- through our patients' eyes first.
- And that's where it begins.
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- Because of the advances of modern medicine,
so many of the children are alive today.
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My work is to help transition them to
an adult care provider that they can know and trust
just like they do us.
The process for transition, it can take several years.
And they don't have to be afraid anymore.
They know there's a plan.
They know who the person is that will help them.
What's unique about our program
is we have the nurse care coordinator
that is taking the lead.
We have promised our families
that we will hold their hand,
that they're not alone during this process.
My goal is that they can advocate for themself.
To me, that's a successful transition.
It's a challenging time to provide healthcare.
You really have to just find
a place that's the heart comes first
and then the business part of healthcare comes second.
And we're so fortunate that at Children's Hospital Colorado
that that's how we are, that's who we are.
- Children's Hospital Colorado is that place...
- where your ideas are valued,
- and you are empowered to do more.
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- KidStreet is a outpatient rehab and educational center
for kids zero to four years old.
And they receive nursing care, therapy care,
and educational services while they're with us.
We're a very multidisciplinary team,
so how are these roles overlapping?
Who's doing what?
I said, "Okay, what time of day do we want to really be,
"to let the nurses focus on truly their nursing tasks?"
So that they can make sure that
these kids are ready and safe for the day.
So our nurses need to be able to
look at these kids head-to-toe.
We need to get them their meds
and their feeds going and things like that.
Let's really try to protect that time
for the nurses to be able to do that.
And then later in the day,
leave a little bit more uninterrupted time
for our therapists and education team to come in,
and really focus that time on therapy and education.
This was a pretty big change.
I think Children's supports us asking the questions
and trying new things to make better outcomes
for staff and for our kids.
- Here, we think differently, and we act differently.
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- I've been really excited about
the North Campus expansion that's going on right now.
We'll be turning from an urgent care
into an official emergency department.
- A path that we're looking at more
is how can we get nurses more involved
in shared governance?
And this is kind of a little piece of a bigger piece.
And by having nurses involved in the little pieces,
it actually lets them see shared governance in action.
So we all sat down with this big map.
And we had a scenario in front of us.
We had nurses, doctors, techs,
and we had free rein to walk in and go,
"Do you like this here?
"Does this cabinet work here?
"Do you want a shelf here?
"Does the sink work here?"
- It's helped me to know that
my choices and my ideas
can help make a big difference in the life of a patient.
- You do sometimes realize
that you're not just a little voice.
That you actually do have a big voice.
- Each of us has a voice.
- We are present and engaged.
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- We get everything from an emergent call,
life-threatening call,
down to not so severe, but what should I do?
I mean historically,
because we only have that non-visual communication,
there's a lot of things that we can't see over the phone
and that parents can't communicate to us.
We needed to figure out a way
that they can share more information,
because technology is better.
We need to be able to tap into that technology.
We worked with our software vendor
and they're gonna be able to actually
have a HIPAA compliant way
for them to send that information to us.
So then we could actually see what they were seeing,
and have that visual, and sometimes auditory.
We can actually hear what was happening
at the time that they were concerned.
We are actually able to share this information
so other triage nurses, other children's hospitals,
can start using this and become more comfortable
to help in their triage also.
So I expect a lot more pediatric triage nurses
will be able to use this across the country.
- To achieve service excellence,
- se do some heavy lifting to remove barriers.
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- 70% of first responders in Colorado
are actually volunteers.
So when you call 911, you expect them to know what to do.
And many times, they don't always know what to do,
or they're not always comfortable doing that.
So we have a really cool educational tool.
It's our pediatric simulation trailer.
And in the back of it,
it is kind of mocked-up like a back of an ambulance.
And then we have kind of a family of mannequins,
and we really try to simulate
those high-stress scenarios that they may encounter,
so that they can actually practice the skills
that are necessary to take care of those kids.
If they don't have the right equipment,
we try to make sure that they get it.
Or that they have an outdated protocol
or outdated knowledge base,
we try to really take that to them
in the moment at the practice level.
So they can practice those skills,
and we can really try to help minimize their stress
when they have to go when it really counts.
So our goal is to find those providers.
What is it that we need to do to empower them
that they're able to take care of those kids
in the moment that it really matters most?
- We are transformational change.
- This is our culture.
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- I right now have three schools.
Roughly 3,000, 3,500 kids that I oversee.
I think a lot of people don't know that
there aren't school nurses in every building
other than a select few in the state of Colorado.
So the model provides that nursing care,
that supervision of the health aides in the building.
These are salt-of-the-earth people
who want to be there in the school.
They're making very little money
and they're with these kids day in and day out.
But there's that trust factor, right?
So you need to know that
I can turn my kid over to the school,
knowing that somebody's there to take care of them.
And so not just the health aides.
It's my job to train the teacher.
It's my job to train the janitor.
It's that partnership, right?
It's that partnership between Children's,
between the family, between the school,
between the school counselor.
By being able to make
these connections and these relationships,
I can make a difference every day
in the lives of so many students.
- Every day, we strive to improve pediatric care.
- For each and every single kiddo in our communities.
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- I love being able to care for those
who cannot care for themselves.
I love being a nurse here at Children's Hospital Colorado.
- You know you're doing good work,
and you're dealing with people that love their job.
And I don't know, I just got chills thinking about it.
- My kids, in spite of whatever it is
that they're dealing with,
they laugh, they love, they play.
That's life.
That's awesome.