Deirdre Washington

Text version of Deirdre Washington's keynote remarks

My name is Deirdre Washington.  I am a Registered Nurse and Lead Care Coordinator for Surgical Services in the Admitting and Discharge department and Post Anesthesia Care Unit at St. Joseph Hospital in Kirkwood, Mo.

Initially I was elated to find out that I had been chosen to attend this conference in Florida, but that quickly changed with the shocking news that I was required to speak in front of you. Since courageous leadership is the theme, I have mustered what courage I have to be able to do just that.

The question posed to me was “In your daily work, how have you been a courageous leader?” 

Recently our department experienced a big change. It used to be that we only cared for post-surgical patients. But a decision was made that we would take care of interventional radiology and cardiac catherization patients immediately after their procedures. For our department, this was uncharted territory. 

Radiology patients used to recover in radiology in a small room with one nurse – and they could not be with their families until their recovery was complete.  Cardiac cath patients were admitted to the hospital and had to spend the night. 

At first my staff was not comfortable accepting radiology and cardiac cath patients because they were not sure how to care for them.  Some of the staff did not hide their negative feelings, and their negative attitudes spread like wildfire. 

My leadership role in the department was to implement this change without any negative impact on the patients, their families or the nursing staff.

Since I knew that a lot of the negativity occurred out of a lack of information, I made sure that the staff had adequate knowledge of the procedure and the care it required afterwards.  I set up many in-services so all of the staff had the tools to care for these new patients safely and competently. 

I thus persuaded our nursing staff -- with over 20 years of experience, expertise and knowledge of recovering surgical patients -- that they could provide safe, competent care to other types of patients as well.

The change meant the patients were able to interact with loved ones sooner, which greatly improved the quality of care for the patients, and they were thankful that they could go home the same day.  The result was positive overall.  My persistence won out even though there was much resistance initially.  This is just one of the positive changes that have caused our patient satisfaction scores to increase from the low 70’s to the 90th percentile.

I have been a nurse for more than twenty five years.  Caring for others and providing comfort is all I have known for most of my adult life.  I am reminded of the fact that making a patient and family comfortable during a difficult time is very important. I know that because I recently lost my father. He was given excellent, compassionate care at a Sister hospital in St. Louis.  The nurses not only provided the physical needs for my father, but the emotional needs for me and for my family.  They checked on us frequently to make sure we were comfortable and gave us the opportunity to be with him in his last hours.  They were respectful of our time with him, but also provided comfort for him as he needed it.  It made me proud to say that I was a nurse.

I believe I am fullfilling our SSM Mission by implementing positive (sometimes difficult) change while still providing quality care.  Finding the courage to make changes can make heroes of us all.  I believe that in my daily work I am providing exceptional health care and revealing the healing presence of God.