I have been fortunate enough to work with Janna for many years, even though I did not really get to know her until I was fortunate enough to be her Team Leader. During a relatively short amount of time, I have watched Janna in her natural element, at the bedside. I often tease her by telling her "When I grow up, I want to be as good of a nurse as you." I also frequently thank her for making my job so effortless.
As her Team Leader, I constantly get feedback about Janna from multiple departments and units about their gratitude on how she is such a team player, how much a patient or family just loved her, or about what a great help she was and how her peers could not have done it without her. Janna is a Team Leader's dream, a huge asset to the organization, and a textbook example of what nurses should be. For these reasons, she is an ideal candidate for receiving the DAISY Award.
She has been a nurse for 23 years and a nurse at Children's Health for 21 years. In that time, she has worked with the often difficult and chronic patient populations on the GI and Renal inpatient units. It was here that she developed her great clinical skills and has been a preceptor and charge nurse. Later, she transferred to the Clinical Resource Team, where she added additional clinical knowledge to her tool belt. For example, she is well trusted by her peers on the pulmonary floor for caring for the often intricate ventilator dependent patients.
Janna is well respected and completely capable of working in Fast Track and Observation areas in the Emergency Department. While in CRT, she has also signed up to work extra shifts to cover as charge nurse, regardless of the unit. Her adaptability and clinical diversity, along with her upbeat personality and contagious smile, make her well respected by her RN peers and MD's. She is pleasure to work with.
Janna brings a level of comfort when the staff learns that she is working on their floor. My greatest appreciation of her is that she is an absolute, unpretentious hero. She never looks for recognition or to be in any spotlight. When she works, she works with personal purpose and integrity, to truly make life better for children. Her clinical judgment is top notch.
Being in the float pool, one must be versatile, flexible, knowledgeable, and professional with every new assignment. Simultaneously, one must maintain their cool. In one shift, there is the opportunity to start your day in the Emergency Department then get floated to an Observation type unit to help complete education and discharge multiple patients, then get floated to the PICU or the Pulmonary Unit to care for ventilator dependent patients with multiple medical ailments, all in the same shift. This is a reality and expectation of being in the float pool.
Janna is no stranger to this type of patient assignment, however, her Systems Thinking allows her to do this with ease and grace.She transitions from one area to another so effortlessly and efficiently, never letting patient quality suffer. And when asked, "Are you doing okay or can I help you do something?" Her response usually is "Nah, I'm fine. I can do anything for X hours."
Janna's superb clinical skills come from her willingness to be open and excited about new experiences because she simply has the inner desire to be an expert at what she does, which translates into excellent patient care.
Her clinical skills harmonize well with another role, and passion of hers: precepting. She has a love for the facilitation of learning. Once, she said to me, "precepting is the way I'm contributing to the next generation," and she is absolutely correct. Janna is an awesome preceptor. Her clinical knowledge, attention to detail, superb customer service, and easy-going demeanor has made her the poster child for the ideal preceptor in our department and in the profession. Experienced and novice nurses in our department flourish when precepted by Janna.
More recently, she has whole-heartedly embraced being a preceptor to our new nurse interns in the Clinical Resource Team. Though there have been a few challenges in navigating this exciting new venture, Janna has worked closely with our educators to ensure our novice nurses have the best experience possible. She has a rejuvenated pep in her tone when discussing the new interns.
She not only enthusiastically precepts, she is also a very active member of the Clinical Resource Team Preceptor Work Group. This group of "teachers" and unofficial leaders frequently meet to discuss the orientation process of new staff, what's working well, and what needs improvement.Janna makes sure to be part of the process of something she adores, always with the patients' best interests in mind.
She also closely collaborates and actively participates in the PIV Prevalence study once per month. This is no easy feat for this small group of dedicated Vascular Access and Float Pool staff to complete a PIV assessment on every patient with a PIV in the inpatient areas all in one day. Not only do they assess the PIV, they make recommendations to keep the patient's PIV as safe as possible. The data that is collected by this small, yet powerful team carries over to larger scale collaborative with other Children's hospitals. Janna and her RN peers' involvement in this study have been instrumental in its success. The time and dedication spent on collecting this data is something that she selflessly gives. She is recognized for this every month by the prevalence study champion and leadership.
Janna's collaborating efforts do not stop there. She is also well-known for her collaboration with different members of the multidisciplinary team when caring for her patients. She is quick to pick up on small details and cues the patient or family may have expressed and quickly puts pieces together as needed. She then communicates this information to the appropriate service or care team member all for the betterment of the patient and family.
Janna's selflessness and collaborative nature also extends into the multiple extra shifts she works, sometimes even as a charge nurse, regardless if there is additional money offered. She does this as a contribution to her team, the patients, and the profession.
Last but certainly not least, she is an absolute patient advocate.She has collaborated with the inpatient attending and charge nurse and stopped the line on patients who were not stable enough to come to the floor from the Emergency Department. These patients needed additional treatment prior to transferring or ended up needing to be transferred to the ICU. She stopped and resolved a new, though erroneous, medication order that was multiple times over the recommended dosage. She also performed the ARCC technique when a surgery resident did not thoroughly review the risks associated with the surgical procedure with her patient's parents, who had other expectations of what the surgery risks and procedure was. And regardless of the safety acronym or new process the organization is using or has recommended, she consistently and authentically exhibits all of these safety characteristics naturally, as it is her patient's well-being that drives her care and is at the core of her nursing practice, no matter what.
Janna also understands the importance of having high standards for her pediatric practice by maintaining her CPN certification. In between her busy nursing career, she loves to run. She really enjoys the stress relief and freedom she gets from running as well as the physical benefits. She lights up when she talks about a marathon or half marathon she is training for. She also has a strong love for Disneyland. As a kid at heart, Janna loves everything Disneyland. Her youthful spirit enables her to sincerely empathize with her patients' situations, which ultimately propels her to create the optimal patient experience as much as possible. To conclude, Janna has positively shaped and impacted numerous nurses, patients, families, our department, and the organization as a whole. I cannot think of another person who is more deserving; she is an extraordinary nurse.