The importance of nurses is felt throughout hospital care. Nurses are the frontline of patient care, influencing outcomes and patient satisfaction. This quality care has earned ECMC nurses many awards.
Karen Ziemianski, Senior Vice President of Nursing of ECMC Corporation, shares how care quality is transformed through mindfulness.
Transforming Quality of Care Through Frontline Mindfulness
Featuring:
Learn more about Karen Ziemianski, MS, RN
Karen Ziemianski, MS, RN
Karen Ziemianski, M.S., R.N. serves as Senior Vice President of Nursing at Erie County Medical Center and also served as its Acting Director of Nursing.Learn more about Karen Ziemianski, MS, RN
Transcription:
Bill Klaproth (Host): The importance of nurses is felt throughout hospital care. Nurses are the frontline of patient care influencing outcomes and patient satisfaction. This quality care has earned ECMC nurses many awards. Karen Ziemianski, Senior Vice President of Nursing of ECMC Corporation, shares how care quality is transformed through mindfulness. Karen, thank you so much for your time today. Can you tell us what drives your commitment to patient care?
Karen Ziemianski (Guest): 100% what drives my commitment is the patients and nurses every single day, 24/7 because they give so much of themselves to the organization, to their patients. That is a huge driver on making things better, making our quality better, and really achieving the outcomes that we want to see in healthcare organizations.
Bill: So good to hear, and as I mentioned in the open, care quality at ECMC is achieved through mindfulness, very interested to hear about this. Can you tell us more?
Karen: Sure, mindfulness is really defined as basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing at all times and for nurses, that’s very important because they’re driving frontline care within the organization, and for every patient it’s almost an individual puzzle piece that the nurse has to deal with, and when a nurse is fully present, they are able to work with that patient and their family, and the entire interdisciplinary team to come together to make the best plan of care for the patient and the transition plan of care for that patient.
Bill: That is so good to hear because when you’re at the hospital, you’re being cared for, you want the people that are caring for you to be focused on you and not have their mind on so many other things, so I love how you put that. Let’s talk about empathy a little bit because it’s so important in healthcare. How important is it that ECMC nurses show empathy and demonstrate a caring attitude in all situations?
Karen: I think it’s pivotal. I think that that is one of the most important attributes that the nurses bring to our organization is the fact that they’re fully present, that they understand the patient’s challenges, that we meet the patient where the patient is, not where we want them to be but where the patient is. So if we have a homeless patient, we meet the homeless patient where they are. If we are dealing with someone who has major domestic violence or has been a victim of trauma, that we meet the patient where they are so that we can do whatever we can to support our patient.
Bill: Fully present and meet the patient where they are. That is so good. Let’s turn to critical thinking because this is another area too. How about the use of critical thinking skills and the delivery of the extraordinary patient care you provide?
Karen: Critical thinking is extremely important, and like I’ve been emphasizing, it’s so very pivotal in everything that the nurses are driving within the organization is understanding from all different aspects what is happening with the patient, how can we support not only the patient but the family and the caregivers surrounding the patient and what we need to do to help make that patient into whatever we can do to assist them through the medical, psychological process of care within our organizations.
Bill: And you were just talking about support and assisting the family and the caregivers. Can you talk about how you collaborate then with the healthcare team to meet the patient’s needs?
Karen: We collaborate in so many different ways. We come together with our team at the bedside and we discuss the plan of care and we include the patient because we want them to be part of whatever transition that they’re going to have to make, and we think it’s important that we’re all on the same page right from the beginning. Obviously not in all circumstances that can happen, but when it can that’s what we want to do, and then we work with community providers. We work at all different levels of care transition so that no matter where our patient is going, that they have a proper handoff, a safe transition, and that we are able to really assist them in that movement towards where they want to go and how do we achieve getting them to that spot?
Bill: And let’s stay with collaboration for a minute Karen and talk about collaboration with the family. That’s so important. The family is right there in the room, wanting to know what’s happening. Tell us about your collaboration or your support of the family as well.
Karen: The family is very important. I mean it is extremely important, but not just the family. A lot of people nowadays they have friends that are like family and we bring all of them together because when you’re going to care for a patient, you need to understand all the dynamics involved around that patient and what support that they might need and who’s going to be that person to help support so we could be teaching the family and friends a medical device or teaching them signs and symptoms or teaching them dietary plans or teaching them different items that they’re going to need to do and then we have teach back where they then assist and tell us how they’re going to do it, give us their plan, and we help make it solid so that they feel comfortable, the patient feels comfortable, and ultimately then we’re able to transition the patient.
Bill: The teach back. That is so good and great point, Karen, about the friends and how friends are family and how you include them as well. Now I know ECMC has won many awards. Can you talk about the awards that ECMC nurses have received in recent months?
Karen: Oh yes, we were just recognized by the Mental Health Association for the Professional of the Year Award, which is a great honor because the mental health association recognizes individuals in behavioral health that epitomize what it means to be to help advocate and support the behavioral health patient. So it was a very proudful moment. We also were recognized by the Professional Nurse’s Association of Western New York that recognizes all the nurses within the Western New York region and we received the Outstanding Staff Nurse Award for the outstanding care and delivery of patients and that was a very, very exciting award. We had I think over 100 people there to assist in celebrating and recognizing the individual that was selected. We also received a Silver Level American Association of Critical Care Nurses Beacon Award for excellence and that is very exciting because it highlights our intensive care unit commitment to high quality of care and is quite an honor to receive that and we were very excited. We actually live streamed the presentation. We sent the nurses down to receive the award and live streamed it back so that everybody could join in and celebrate. It is truly a designation of high quality, that award, and we have received many other awards too. I could go on and on.
Bill: Well your care quality has certainly been recognized by the industry and I know by the patients you care for. Karen, thank you so much for this great information, we appreciate it. For more information on ECMC please visit, ecmc.edu, that’s ecmc.edu. This is the True Care Healthcast from Erie County Medical Center, I’m Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth (Host): The importance of nurses is felt throughout hospital care. Nurses are the frontline of patient care influencing outcomes and patient satisfaction. This quality care has earned ECMC nurses many awards. Karen Ziemianski, Senior Vice President of Nursing of ECMC Corporation, shares how care quality is transformed through mindfulness. Karen, thank you so much for your time today. Can you tell us what drives your commitment to patient care?
Karen Ziemianski (Guest): 100% what drives my commitment is the patients and nurses every single day, 24/7 because they give so much of themselves to the organization, to their patients. That is a huge driver on making things better, making our quality better, and really achieving the outcomes that we want to see in healthcare organizations.
Bill: So good to hear, and as I mentioned in the open, care quality at ECMC is achieved through mindfulness, very interested to hear about this. Can you tell us more?
Karen: Sure, mindfulness is really defined as basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing at all times and for nurses, that’s very important because they’re driving frontline care within the organization, and for every patient it’s almost an individual puzzle piece that the nurse has to deal with, and when a nurse is fully present, they are able to work with that patient and their family, and the entire interdisciplinary team to come together to make the best plan of care for the patient and the transition plan of care for that patient.
Bill: That is so good to hear because when you’re at the hospital, you’re being cared for, you want the people that are caring for you to be focused on you and not have their mind on so many other things, so I love how you put that. Let’s talk about empathy a little bit because it’s so important in healthcare. How important is it that ECMC nurses show empathy and demonstrate a caring attitude in all situations?
Karen: I think it’s pivotal. I think that that is one of the most important attributes that the nurses bring to our organization is the fact that they’re fully present, that they understand the patient’s challenges, that we meet the patient where the patient is, not where we want them to be but where the patient is. So if we have a homeless patient, we meet the homeless patient where they are. If we are dealing with someone who has major domestic violence or has been a victim of trauma, that we meet the patient where they are so that we can do whatever we can to support our patient.
Bill: Fully present and meet the patient where they are. That is so good. Let’s turn to critical thinking because this is another area too. How about the use of critical thinking skills and the delivery of the extraordinary patient care you provide?
Karen: Critical thinking is extremely important, and like I’ve been emphasizing, it’s so very pivotal in everything that the nurses are driving within the organization is understanding from all different aspects what is happening with the patient, how can we support not only the patient but the family and the caregivers surrounding the patient and what we need to do to help make that patient into whatever we can do to assist them through the medical, psychological process of care within our organizations.
Bill: And you were just talking about support and assisting the family and the caregivers. Can you talk about how you collaborate then with the healthcare team to meet the patient’s needs?
Karen: We collaborate in so many different ways. We come together with our team at the bedside and we discuss the plan of care and we include the patient because we want them to be part of whatever transition that they’re going to have to make, and we think it’s important that we’re all on the same page right from the beginning. Obviously not in all circumstances that can happen, but when it can that’s what we want to do, and then we work with community providers. We work at all different levels of care transition so that no matter where our patient is going, that they have a proper handoff, a safe transition, and that we are able to really assist them in that movement towards where they want to go and how do we achieve getting them to that spot?
Bill: And let’s stay with collaboration for a minute Karen and talk about collaboration with the family. That’s so important. The family is right there in the room, wanting to know what’s happening. Tell us about your collaboration or your support of the family as well.
Karen: The family is very important. I mean it is extremely important, but not just the family. A lot of people nowadays they have friends that are like family and we bring all of them together because when you’re going to care for a patient, you need to understand all the dynamics involved around that patient and what support that they might need and who’s going to be that person to help support so we could be teaching the family and friends a medical device or teaching them signs and symptoms or teaching them dietary plans or teaching them different items that they’re going to need to do and then we have teach back where they then assist and tell us how they’re going to do it, give us their plan, and we help make it solid so that they feel comfortable, the patient feels comfortable, and ultimately then we’re able to transition the patient.
Bill: The teach back. That is so good and great point, Karen, about the friends and how friends are family and how you include them as well. Now I know ECMC has won many awards. Can you talk about the awards that ECMC nurses have received in recent months?
Karen: Oh yes, we were just recognized by the Mental Health Association for the Professional of the Year Award, which is a great honor because the mental health association recognizes individuals in behavioral health that epitomize what it means to be to help advocate and support the behavioral health patient. So it was a very proudful moment. We also were recognized by the Professional Nurse’s Association of Western New York that recognizes all the nurses within the Western New York region and we received the Outstanding Staff Nurse Award for the outstanding care and delivery of patients and that was a very, very exciting award. We had I think over 100 people there to assist in celebrating and recognizing the individual that was selected. We also received a Silver Level American Association of Critical Care Nurses Beacon Award for excellence and that is very exciting because it highlights our intensive care unit commitment to high quality of care and is quite an honor to receive that and we were very excited. We actually live streamed the presentation. We sent the nurses down to receive the award and live streamed it back so that everybody could join in and celebrate. It is truly a designation of high quality, that award, and we have received many other awards too. I could go on and on.
Bill: Well your care quality has certainly been recognized by the industry and I know by the patients you care for. Karen, thank you so much for this great information, we appreciate it. For more information on ECMC please visit, ecmc.edu, that’s ecmc.edu. This is the True Care Healthcast from Erie County Medical Center, I’m Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.