Each quarter, Uteam Members of the Month from the Medical Center, School of Medicine, and UVA Physicians Group (UPG) are recognized for outstanding service to UVA Health and their commitment to our ASPIRE core values: Accountability, Stewardship, Professionalism, Integrity, Respect, and Excellence.

Below are the honorees for the third quarter of 2021. Click a name to read the corresponding nomination (and leave a comment below to thank the honorees for their dedication to our patients and each other!). Congratulations team!

Nominations have been edited for clarity and privacy.

MEDICAL CENTER

• July 2021 Uteam Member of the Month: Jessica Painter, Patient Care Technician, 5 Central
• August 2021 Uteam Member of the Month:Patrick Washington, Pharmacy Tech Lead
• September 2021 Uteam Member of the Month: Donna Clarke, RN Procedure Coordinators, Operating Rooms

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

• September 2021 Uteam Member of the Month: Kayla Calvo, Business Administrator, iTHRIV

UPG

• July 2021 Uteam Member of the Month: Crystal “Crissy” Knight, IT Analyst Intermediate, Revenue Cycle
• August 2021 Uteam Member of the Month: Nina Simmons, Team Care Specialist, Waynesboro Dermatology

Medical Center

Jessica Painter, Patient Care Technician, 5 Central
July 2021 Uteam Member of the Month

"Florence Nightingale inspired generations of nurses to 'open the windows and let the sunlight in' to heal and restore patients. I often think of her when I see Jessica taking care of patients with her special touch. We recently had a frail elderly patient whose dementia had progressed significantly. Her family identified that the patient had not been sleeping at all for almost seven days before admission to the hospital. As Jessica began to work with her, the patient was acutely delirious and agitated.

"Jessica is a highly skilled and knowledgeable patient care technician. She immediately realized this patient was at super high risk for all kinds of healthcare acquired complications Jessica suggested to the registered nurse caring for Ms. S that she was going to get the patient out of bed and into a wheelchair. Jessica applies a rehabilitation focus to all of her patients with incredible outcomes. For Ms. S, not only did she perform the important work of encouraging and involving her in self-care, but Jessica also then set the patient up where the natural light of day was clearly visible and gave her a variety of activities, like folding washcloths and towels and reading magazines, to keep her hands busy. Jessica concentrated on interventions within her scope of practice to put Ms. S into daylight and keep her stimulated.

"By the end of day two, Ms. S’s circadian rhythm began to reset, and she actually slept for almost six hours. By the third night of sleep following Jessica‘s exceptional care, this patient’s mental status began to significantly improve. Jessica worked with her for three full days. She led the care team in appreciating how sleep deprivation had impacted Ms. S's mental status. The patient's daughter was amazed at the improvement in her mom's level of attention, memory, and engagement in her own care. This successful return to home, instead of a skilled nursing facility, was because of Jessica's knowledge and her in-the-moment clinical leadership for non-pharmacologic interventions. Jessica is advanced in her technical skills, providing a full range of complex services to patients with ease.

"She also stands out far above peers in providing compassionate care with confidence, intelligence, and exemplary skill. A recent example of her outstanding care comes from her work with a complex, high acuity patient who had multiple intra-abdominal abscesses and drains. Her anxiety made communication a frequent challenge. Jessica patiently encouraged her weak efforts to gain control of a terrifying situation. She always made time to slow down and support the patient in self-care activities. The many competing priorities on our fast-paced med-surgical progressive care unit can be a challenge. Jessica’s advanced competence and skill allowed her to prioritize interventions for this complex patient’s safety and comfort. Jessica directly prevented the need for using physical restraints on more than one occasion during periods of intense agitation and confusion. Throughout the care of this patient, Jessica also provided leadership to new graduate RNs and travel RNs. Her skilled physical care, frequent comfort, and safety observations and involvement of the family combined in a way that supported the unique goals of the patient, family, and the interdisciplinary team. The patient’s husband expressed deep appreciation for Jessica’s care. He stated that it was Jessica’s excellent, compassionate care which reduced his stress and worry. Jessica’s empathy, patience, and skill respected this patient's autonomy and dignity. She enabled the husband to step back from care provision and focus on his concerns for his wife.

"Another example of how Jessica provides personal, compassionate care comes from her work with a surgical patient who had many medical comorbidities. This patient was decompensated, elderly, and malnourished. His edema was profound and immobilizing — it was so bad his ankles would not bend for several days. Jessica provided vigilant attention to his special mobility and skin care needs. As she reported off to the night shift, she included his preferences for frequent toileting and nutritional supplements. When this patient began to regain strength, Jessica helped him to celebrate each step. Jessica’s initiative and talent in making a hard job look easy jumps out from his care. In a semi-private room, with a cardiac monitor, IV space pole with many channels, extra suction set ups, bedside commode, table, SCDs, and CPAP machine, even getting close to the patient was difficult. She set up his room for safety and efficiency so when he was ready, she was too — there with a walker and rolling oxygen to assist with his first real steps in a week. Each time he successfully used the bedside commode or sat in the chair, Jessica cheered him on. Jessica made each moment special and dignified. Jessica also demonstrates her knowledge of our diverse patient population and their care needs through her excellent performance in emergency situations. Jessica will find someone else if the assigned nurse is not available. We had a patient that was semi-stable who began to quickly decline. The primary RN was tied up in another room. She sought out the charge RN and other help before the primary RN could be there. Quick intervention prevented a serious negative outcome. Jessica is committed to learning and educating herself and others. She is regularly selected to train new CNAs. She has a remarkable ability to tailor her style to help orientees be successful. Jessica role models teamwork for all. She is always willing to pitch in and meet the need in whatever way possible. This is done with her positive and professional attitude in a manner that includes others and focuses on the outcome for the patients, which makes everyone feel good. She truly embodies our organizational values."

BACK TO TOP

Patrick Washington, Pharmacy Tech Lead
August 2021 Uteam Member of the Month

"I would like to nominate Patrick Washington for Uteam member of the Month. He is kind to all and always jumps in to support not only his team but others throughout the department. All coordination for loading and unloading medications for new tower movement (and changes) and established new areas were largely thanks to Patrick’s efforts. He pulls all the pieces together and executes for everyone. He’s vital to covering services for inpatient pharmacy and has led facilitating technician students through PVCC and the in house PTU program. Without his support for the PTU program, we would not be able to hire or train the technician workforce, which has been particularly challenging this past month with 6 PTU students right now (and growing) for him to manage and PVCC students joining the mix as well this past week. At minimum, Patrick receives a shout out/kudos once a week from a variety of team members in the department. Overall, he treats everyone with kindness, understanding, and general enthusiasm for all and all tasks, even on his bad days or when things aren’t going his way. An assistant manager for clinical operations pharmacy services provided feedback that 'Patrick is a model technician and honestly makes my day better anytime I get to interact with him. He not only tries to stay positive but tries to make others smile and feel included.' A new pharmacy assistant manager for clinical operations provided feedback saying, 'Patrick has been fundamental in my first 10 months here in helping with initiatives and assisting with a lot of quick asks in recent months. He always has a fantastic attitude and approaches every situation with an optimistic attitude. In recent pilots, he has been the boots-on-the-ground partner to help our technicians adjust to and coach them in new workflows.' Nursing colleagues have sent emails providing positive feedback and kudos for how helpful Patrick has been, even if it was to help redirect and connect them to the correct person. He has been praised for his helpful and calm nature to get the job done. A particular example was a nurse trying to procure a hospital supply item. Patrick ensured the nurse was connected to the right supply chain person and followed up to ensure everything worked out. I would say he easily meets every single criterion mentioned in the Uteam nomination form, and he has been recognized by even our nursing colleagues for his exceptional service to patient care and great attitude."

BACK TO TOP

Donna Clarke, RN, RN Procedure Coordinator
September 2021 Uteam Member of the Month

"Over the past year, multiple challenges relating to healthcare impacted each member of our health system. Through determination, perseverance, and teamwork, the TCV team was able to meet these challenges head on while continuing to provide excellent patient care and thoughtful work relationships with our peers. One team member in particular to mention is Donna Clarke, RN, Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Clinical Coordinator. Donna has been instrumental in providing front-line, forward-facing care to our patients in the operating room at UVA. With her tremendous dedication to her Pediatric Cardiac Surgical program as a Coordinator and Head of Service, I nominate Donna to receive the Uteam Member of the Month Award.

"This year, Donna stood out in her review in that she has worked tirelessly on cost containment and efficiency as well as education of OR staff and Cath Lab staff in the peds cardiac surgery arena.

"Cost Containment: The impact of the coronavirus outbreak on healthcare, and specifically on the University of Virginia, made each healthcare team member acutely aware of the vital importance of decreasing waste within our environment. As Head of Service for the congenital cardiac service line, Donna was able to work closely with both Drs. Gangemi and Roeser to help decrease the cost of the surgical procedures performed in our main operating room for a total decrease in cost of 18% (4% and 14% respectfully for each surgeon). Her daily review of upcoming surgical procedures and addressing unnecessary supplies that could be removed from the doctors’ preference card assisted in the reduction of waste in both supplies and time for both the operating room nursing staff and SPD staff. This daily review helped to streamline supplies and allowed the case cart to be individualized to the diversity in patient population. Acknowledging that more conscious behaviors relating to utilization of supplies, Donna continues to strive to cut costs whenever possible during surgical procedures and remind all team members to be mindful of needless waste.

"Keeping in tune with the goal of cost containment and waste reduction, Donna manages the emergent open chest cart in the PICU for supplies and instrumentation. Donna performs a weekly assessment of the status of these supplies and perform a quarterly rotation of all supplies to prevent expiration of items that could be utilized prior to any expiration dates. This practice not only keeps UVA compliant with the Joint Commission for outdated supplies but assists the institution in the prevention of waste due to expired items.

"As the congenital heart program continues to grow, there has been a noted increase in the volume of adult congenital procedures that are performed each year by Drs. Gangemi and Roeser. Within this sub-specialty, there are required instrumentation that is not present within the adult cardiac instrument pans. Through collaboration with her surgeons and with our surgical technicians, Donna was able to establish two adult congenital instrument pans, providing this service line with a very streamlined instrument setup, decreasing the number of pans opened from six to two. Not only has this practice assisted with cost containment for the time consumed by sterile processing to decontaminate and reprocess that many pans of instruments, but it also added greatly to the efficiency of the operating room for sterile setup. This, in turn, has added to staff satisfaction in decreasing workload. Donna continues to collaborate with her peers to discover new ways to streamline instrumentation.

"Another significant change in practice that Donna initiated for the congenital heart service has been the establishment of a Congenital Cardiac ECMO Emergency Case Cart. Previous practice had been utilizing the Pediatric Open Chest (Major case) Emergency Cart for any open chest ECMO emergency that occurred outside of the PICU or OR 25 (designated congenital heart room). Any conversion of a cardiac catheterization procedure to an open chest procedure to establish central access ECMO had involved opening two major instrument pans with excessive supply waste. In the past year, there had been two separate occasions that triggered emergent specialty team intervention (congenital heart surgeon and nursing staff), resulting in establishing central ECMO and subsequent transport from the catheterization lab to the congenital heart room. From these events stemmed the creation of the Pediatric Cardiac ECMO Emergency Case Cart with a streamlined instrument pan and emergency suture packs that are weight specific to the congenital population.

"This ideal rearrangement of instruments and supplies has enabled the team to focus more clearly on the task at hand to establish circulatory support as safely and efficiently as possible, thus assisting in the prevention of unnecessary waste.

"Efficiency: As a part of the overall goal of cost containment, efficiency plays an important factor in ensuring that costs are kept at a minimum while continuing to deliver excellent patient care. The institutional goal of meeting First Case on Time parameters were consistently met within the congenital heart service line, exceeding our set goal on many occasions with a 100% compliance. Meeting this goal is most definitely a team effort.

Donna participated in:

• Ensuring that her operating room is clean, organized, and well stocked at the end of her shift
• Ensuring that all of her DPCs are streamlined to prevent waste and unnecessary work in moving and relocating supplies that are not required for a particular case
• Ensuring that vital supplies are present on the Congenital Heart supply rack outside of OR 25 in CORE 2 to prevent delays in receiving instruments if needed
• Establishing and updating standard work practices as they relate to the congenital heart operating room
• Ensuring that all specialty supplies and implants are available for upcoming procedures, including homograft valves and Matracell patches, communicating with our LifeNet representative and Implant Room to meet the surgical needs of our patient population
• Ensuring that a language interpreter is available for our non-English speaking parents or planning ahead with use of the Cyracom network to avoid delays due to communication challenges Turn-Around-Time (TAT) planning also assists with room utilization and efficiency.

"Through many years as a registered nurse in the operating room, Donna has advanced skills in organizing her time and efforts to work in the most efficient way possible to meet the goals she set for herself each day. She multitasks in obtaining patient information in Epic, obtaining medications within the PYXIS system, and gathering supplies. She sends for the next case carts early enough to enable a review of the contents with efforts to identify and rectify any deficits such as missing instruments and supplies. Although her particular service line rarely has a second case to follow, she remains diligent in her processes to be alert for any changes that may occur during the workday. She pays close attention to the workflow of the operating room and observes tactics that prove to be beneficial with shortened turnaround times.

"This year, Donna went above and beyond with her personal goal of providing educational sessions for the cardiac nursing staff with a focus on congenital heart defects: Donna was able to identify a need to develop an emergency case cart to better care for the congenital heart population in need of emergent central ECMO. With this in mind, an ideal opportunity presented itself to not only introduce this new process but to educate staff to increase performance in an emergency that results in central cannulation for ECMO on the pediatric heart patient.

"Donna collaborated with the nursing staff from the catheterization lab (Cath Lab A) who routinely participate in the invasive procedures performed on neonates and pediatric patients to determine the needs from that department. Donna developed an educational offering that was informative and hands on. Both the interventional cardiologist (Dr. Hainstock) and Dr. Roeser (congenital heart surgeon) participated in this educational process which included members of the cath lab and TCV nursing staff. Her goal was achieved with this initial session, and it was determined that this 'mock code' situation would be provided on a quarterly basis. Due to the COVID pandemic, subsequent sessions were halted to comply with institutional guidelines to prevent large gatherings. She was able to continue to provide education to cath lab partners and team by performing one-on-one educational opportunities. Donna’s goal this year was to provide one session to meet and two to exceed, which she was able to do in a more intimate approach to training on a continuous basis throughout the year.

"Key accomplishments highlighted for Donna for the year 2021 in addition to the above:

• Collaborated with general surgery pediatric manager and general surgery pediatric head of service to identify opportunities to provide education to the entire operating room staff, highlighting Pediatric ECMO (open chest versus neck cannulation)
• Provided support to the entire TCV nursing team 'on-call' for lung transplants over the past year by establishing a separate DPC for Dr. Mark Roeser (peds cardiac surgeon) with his particular preferences that varied greatly from the previous lung transplant surgeons at UVA. Donna was able to maintain his preferences on a DPC separate from other surgeons as not to interfere with previously established protocols and preferences. Frequent updates to his card provided for increased staff satisfaction, patient safety, and efficiency in care.
• Continued development of the orientation program, guidelines, and standard work processes for the congenital service line, assisting the learner with a clear outline of the orientation process and expectations. Donna developed new evaluation forms which proved to be more efficient and were adopted by the preceptor for adult cardiac. Donna continues to provide assistance to her peers during the orientation process of new team members. As you can see, Donna has exceeded in every core value that is needed and has exhibited exemplary performance, which goes above and beyond her job expectations as a coordinator and head of service for the Peds Cardiac Service Line. She has excelled in process improvements, financial effectiveness, innovations, marketing, customer service, and professional development. Donna APSIREs daily to provide excellent care for her patients.

BACK TO TOP

School of Medicine

Kayla Calvo, Business Administrator, iTHRIV
September 2021 Uteam Member of the Month

"Kayla demonstrates our ASPIRE values in her everyday actions to support clinical and translational research at UVA. She is highly ACCOUNTABLE, going above and beyond to support early career investigators navigating challenging grant award processes. She is an exceptional STEWARD of limited federal resources and institutional funds to help maximize our impact in iTHRIV. She demonstrates PROFESSIONALISM in the way she performs all aspects of her job. One particular example is her work with the new RAPTR program, which she conceived/developed and leads to provide training for research administrators in the School of Medicine. She is always thinking of others and looking for ways to help her peers. Kayla operates with INTEGRITY and RESPECT for all persons, and her work managing the very complex NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award for iTHRIV is nothing short of EXCELLENT!"

BACK TO TOP

UPG

Crystal “Crissy” Knight, IT Analyst Intermediate, Revenue Cycle
July 2021 Uteam Member of the Month

"I’d like to nominate Crystal Knight for Uteam Member of the Month. Crissy is a tremendous asset to our Patient Friendly Billing team throughout the year, supporting us with Epic builds and optimization as well as our statement processes. Crissy has devoted time and energy to continuous improvement projects, built new work queues to support our workflows, and assisted in MyChart optimization and IVR testing. Crissy monitors tickets closely and attempts to close them more quickly than expected. Perhaps most notably, Crissy has assisted our team during the past two years to update our patient billing statement and is now supporting us through the optimization phases. Recommendations were obtained from various sources such as patients, advisory groups, team members, and marketing. During the last phase of our project, Crissy pivoted frequently and quickly to make changes to the statement as new information was gathered. Crissy remained professional and patient through each change, making updates often, sometimes even multiple times in a day. Crissy was vital to our communications with the statement vendor during the testing phases of the statement redesign project. Crissy’s knowledge and expertise in the technical pieces allowed us to navigate multiple challenges and ultimately resulted in a successful implementation of a much-improved patient statement. It is safe to say, without Crissy’s support this project would not have gone as well as it did. We have a strong partnership with our Epic team, and Crissy is one of the key players we rely on to come through during the most challenging of circumstances. Crissy exemplifies accountability, stewardship, professionalism, integrity, respect, and excellence on a consistent basis. We are grateful to have her as a part of our extended PFB family!"

BACK TO TOP

Nina Simmons, Team Care Specialist, Waynesboro Dermatology
August 2021 Uteam Member of the Month

"Nina truly displays every ASPIRE value. She has strong qualities of leadership among the clinical team and is always quick to problem solve and find a quicker and better way for a task, sharing her processes with her team members. She is very reliable for providers, staff, and patients, always going the extra mile and doing so with a cheerful spirit. One example of Nina displaying her ASPIRE values is when we are short staffed on clinical support, and this has been frequent recently. Nina not only works with her own provider fulfilling her job duties but routinely checks on our fill-in staff, teaching and training them, as well as encouraging them. In an effort to help support our fill-in clinical staff and help train new clinical staff hires, Nina created a tip sheet on our specific clinical processes and provider preferences, such as their smart phrases and clinic procedures. This has been an extremely valuable tool in training fill-in clinical staff and has inspired us as a practice to create similar tip sheets for other areas of our office. Another way Nina has demonstrated her ASPIRE values was by developing a process for incoming medical records from other providers. Nina thought about what the best process would be to abstract the necessary and pertinent dermatology information into the Epic chart before sending the chart to HIS to be scanned in. This process not only got the important information into the chart but lessened the burden on the provider because they know the clinical assistant has gone through the chart previously and abstracted that information. Nina helped develop the standard work process for this, and it has worked very successfully. Nina is overall a very hardworking and dedicated employee who never complains about her workload or helping out the providers, her co-workers, or patients, and Dr. Cynthia Dent and myself feel she should be recognized for this."

BACK TO TOP