Ms. Begley embodies and demonstrates each one of the I CARE principles daily in the leadership she provides her team in the Emergency Department, as well as in the encounters she has with internal and external stakeholders for the Lexington VA Health Care System.

Ms. Begley demonstrates professional and personal integrity in her daily routine. For example, although new to a leadership role, she has created an environment of trust and confidence. She has the ability to make staff feel comfortable about disclosing errors and close calls while maintaining confidentiality and confidence for accountability. A recent example of Ms. Begley demonstrating integrity and compassion is when an RN accidentally forgot to waste a controlled substance during their tour of duty. Later, when the RN recognized her mistake, she felt comfortable notifying Ms. Begley and self-reporting her error. Ms. Begley was able to comfort the employee while also addressing the situation and providing concise guidance, along with accountability for the mistake.

Ms. Begley demonstrates commitment and advocacy to truly focusing on the Veterans and honoring the VA’s mission by designing and implementing strategies to optimize the Veterans' care and experiences. Ms. Begley has worked hard to complete multiple SOPs and trained staff to follow standardized processes to ensure evidence-based practices and guidelines are followed by the staff. She has ensured staff received the proper training and education required to apply for the Lexington VA Emergency Department to be granted the Geriatric Emergency Department Level 3 Accreditation.

Beyond that, Ms. Begley has led her team to improve door-to-EKG time by 4 minutes from FY24q2 to now and improving door-to-triage times to 2 minutes less than the target time from FY24q2 to now. Ms. Begley has also improved response rates to the truthpoint surveys in the Emergency Department. This offers an opportunity for Veterans to give real-time feedback on the care they have just received while at the Lexington VA Emergency Department. As a testament to Ms. Begley’s commitment to serving and honoring the Veterans and families that are seen in the emergency department, I have witnessed Ms. Begley personally calling Veterans or their family members who reported having a negative experience or negative response on a truthpoint survey or PATS-R. Ms. Begley has offered apologies for negative experiences and worked with the veteran to identify opportunities for improvement and ways to improve their next experience. Recently, the emergency department had a national site visit from the ACHIEVE women's health team to evaluate the facility's women’s health strengths and opportunities for improvement. Due to Ms. Begley’s work, the emergency department was not only very well prepared for this site visit, but the ACHIEVE team took with them the best practices from our facility and the SOP that Ms. Begley wrote to share with other facilities.

Ms. Begley provides dignity and respect to those she encounters. She demonstrates dignity and respect in her advanced skill level to effectively communicate with staff and other stakeholders. Through her communication, she is able to accomplish unit-level and facility objectives and goals, as well as show her support for workforce diversity and inclusion. Ms. Begley is approachable and trustworthy. As mentioned previously, she makes the staff feel comfortable in talking with her about their concerns, as well as celebrations and opportunities for improvement.

Ms. Begley strives for excellence in herself in all that she does and is a role model for others to strive for excellence. In the short time that Ms. Begley has been in her acting Nurse Manager role, she has proven to effectively lead others, improve processes, and meet or supersede goals set by the service and facility.