Lisa Cost
April 2021
Lisa
Cost
,
RN
PACU
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford
Palo Alto
,
CA
United States

 

 

 

At times, Lisa has prevented patients from death and members of the staff from harm.
Lisa is one of our amazing nurses in our preoperative care unit. When my patients are being assessed by her prior to surgery, I know that they are going to receive a thorough assessment, and Lisa will catch things that are not in the medical record. At times, she has prevented patients from death and members of the staff from harm.
We had a 3-year-old patient who was an inpatient and came down to the preoperative area prior to surgery. Most people would not have bothered to place the patient on EKG monitors, but Lisa did. She understood the complexity of the patient’s medical history, and this action captured an arrhythmia. Her concern about the captured arrhythmia was dismissed by the resident, but Lisa continued to advocate for her patient; she made sure to let everyone know that this had occurred.
At times information like this is dismissed after one medical physician is informed and we only find out about it after there is an adverse event. Lisa advocating for her patient, ensuring the EKGs were in the right place and that there was no artifact contributing to the arrhythmia, made it even more of a compelling story for something that no one wanted to believe. During this time, she stayed composed and kept the family informed and she made sure the family and patient had what they needed. We avoided an adverse event in the operating room.
Another time, Lisa caught that a patient had a negative test for COVID, but it was out of the required window. This is the attention to detail that she brings every day. She goes above and beyond for the children. I still recall an anxious 4-year-old with a little doll. The 4-year-old was hesitant to take a warm hospital blanket even though she expressed being cold, but Lisa brought a baby blanket and placed it on the doll normalizing using the blanket and the 4-year-old smiled with a large grin. She was so excited about having a warm blanket and that her doll was being taken care of. Lisa goes that extra step with all her patients. We all love working with Lisa and she is a great team player. She is strong at communicating and deals with difficult situations with grace and poise. I can’t think of anyone more deserving than Lisa for the DAISY Award.