Role Model Compassionate Care: 
Lisa is a standout amongst her peers for so many reasons. First and foremost, it’s about being one of the most honest, compassionate, and dedicated leaders ever to wear the Yale New Haven Hospital badge. Every day, she leads with love, patience, and incredible kindness. Her door is always open, her phone always on and her ear always ready to listen and help. Lisa is many years into her career as a Yale Nurse Leader but her enthusiasm and drive to do the “right things” with a gentle touch has never wavered. Lisa lives the Yale values on and off the clock. At home, she cares for her elderly mother with dementia and at work, she cares all of us. Her energy to drive forward is boundless, and her determination to succeed in all tasks is second to none. Over the last few years, Lisa has been tasked with the “impossible.” She’s kept our ED up and running through Covid, through visitor restrictions, through unprecedented ED patient violence, through desperate staffing shortages and through severe hospital volume surge sprees. What makes her different is that she’s been out on the front line with all of us to make sure we consistently deliver safe and superior care. Under no circumstances is sacrificing safety and quality acceptable, even when cutting corners might be overlooked given the times. Lisa is out there with a mop, a broom, a rag to wash windows, an extra hand at triage or rounding on patients and staff. She does it all.

Special Connection:
Fiscal years 2023 and 2024 brought countless changes and challenges to the YSC ED. Maciejak partnered with our Medical Director to adapt the ED flow model to maximize throughput, decrease patient wait times and lower our percentage of patients that leave without being seen. This optimization has occurred EVERY WEEK for months now. Lisa led the pivot as the Main ED had to absorb 35 patient spots when the Annex was abruptly closed by the State, then worked to adjust and restore the Annex flow once it was reopened. She has been instrumental in building and improving our partnership with our Emergency Department Behavioral Health providers to include hardwiring their presence at our daily huddle and collaborating on development of a Behavioral Health Charge role to interface between the care areas to improve flow.

Significant Difference:
Lisa Maciejak’s leadership has changed the culture of the Emergency Department. The expectation of 200% accountability is front and center every day. Both leaders and staff talk openly about departmental issues. We promptly self-report errors and use these discussions to learn from each other and make improvements. Maciejak has busted long-standing silos and never accepts anything less than a multidisciplinary discussion and solution. The scope of the PSM role in the York Street Emergency Department is likely unparalleled to anywhere else in the Health System yet Maciejak has her finger on the pulse of all of it every single day. She forgets nothing, closes the loop on every item and assures communication across the 700+ employees in this department alone. Lisa embraces every chance to mentor as strongly as any opportunity to learn and inspires all of us to try harder, focus more and to never ever give up trying to make things better.