Six Providence Hospitals nurses receive 2016 Palmetto Gold Award

Each year the South Carolina Nurses Foundation recognizes 100 nurses who exemplify excellence in practice and commitment to the profession. Nurses are nominated across the entire state from a variety of practice settings to receive this Palmetto Gold Nurse Award. Organizations can nominate as many as six individuals each year for the blind review. This year, all six of the Providence Hospitals nominees received the award.

These six individuals now join the prestigious group of past honorees who continue to serve and contribute high-quality care to patients.

• Elbony Belton-Ashford
• Cassandra Burch
• Anne Grogan Hanford
• Dee Angela Hanna
• Elizabeth Jones
• Craig Smith

Each spring, the Palmetto Gold Gala is held to recognize the award recipients. The proceeds generated from this gala contribute to a scholarship fund for RN students.

In honor of Nursing Week, each of our 2016 recipients will have their portraits ceremoniously hung in the downtown hospital onMay 12, 2016, at noon.

For more information on the Palmetto Gold program, go to http://www.scpalmettogold.org/.

 

More about the Providence Palmetto Gold Recipients: 

Elbony Belton-Ashford, RN, BSN

As clinical director of the inpatient telemetry service line, Elbony Belton-Ashford created a team environment by cross training and collaborating so that her employees could work in any unit with confidence. Believing a happy employee provides better care to the patients, she developed a Dare to Care Program to identify staff needs and ensure that they have those resources. Patient satisfaction scores have risen on all of her units. Currently certified in ACLS and BLS, she is an active member of the ANA and SCNA, and she also works on multiple committees in the organization like the Restraint Committee and Internal Audit Team to improve patient quality of care. In addition, Elbony volunteers in her community, assisting with health fairs, flu injections, the AHA Heart Walk, and sharing vegetables from her spring garden with family, friends, and co-workers.

 

Cassandra Burch, ADN

A leader in research and practice, Cassandra Burch developed a plan to improve compliance with documentation standards in pain management, raising compliance from 50% to 100% during trials. She also developed activities and offerings to connect staff in multi-disciplinary departments and opposite shifts, strengthening relations and networks, including an initiative to promote engagement, recognition, and critical thinking for night shift employees. She created a magazine featuring night shift employees throughout the organization, and instituted regular potluck dinners combined with educational sessions for the employees on that shift. The gift shop is open during these sessions to promote the sense of a continuous team within the organization.  Through her projects, she engages newer nurses in research and implementation. In the community, she helps disenfranchised youth in need of mental health services, teaches a local weekly Bible study, partners with a home to place homeless clients, and sponsors quarterly blood pressure screenings for the underserved community.

 

Anne Grogan-Hanford, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC, AGPCNP-BC, CRRN

Known as an enthusiastic educator, researcher, and clinician, Anne Grogan-Hanford has presented numerous topics and classes to health care providers that address quality and safety concerns. A member of five national professional nursing organizations, Anne is consistently called upon to provide research to formulate opinions and positions that influence the role and scope of professional nursing practice standards. In one such focus, Anne performed a longitudinal review of hospital patient fall trends. She then consulted and collaborated with management to implement identified interventions, resulting in a 55% reduction in patient falls in one unit and a 32% reduction in the other.  As a result of the Fall Prevention program’s success, she has served as a guest speaker on the subject at several seminars and her intervention implementations continue to spread.

 

Dee Angela Hanna, RN, BSEE, MSN/IH, PCCN

As the unit educator, Dee Angela Hanna focuses on recruitment and retention of nurses. Excluding three nurses who moved away, the one year retention rate for the new nursing staff is 90%–almost 20 points higher than the national average. As a preceptor, she has successfully oriented 51 out of 53 new hires to the unit, of which seven out of eight LPNs converted to RN’s, and six Associate Degree nurses are pursuing a BSN.  To foster consistency in the orientation process, Dee created a preceptor handbook that is now the blueprint for other units. She also authored daily guidelines for patient care. In the community, she volunteers by building handicap ramps, housing, and furnishings and repairing homes for the newly impaired and the marginalized; facilitates physician appointments and transportation, prescription assistance, and healthcare education for the elderly in her community; and donates eggs and produce from her chickens and garden.

 

Elizabeth Jones, RN, CWOCN

Elizabeth Jones is a mentor and leader in education and practice as seen in her evidence based research and the training she provides. An integral part of organizational patient safety programs, she collaborates with her colleagues on acquired hospital ulcers and Foley management through prevalence studies that target specific areas for improvement leading to lower hospital acquired pressure ulcers and decreased hospital acquired UTI’s. Elizabeth is a mentor to many local nursing students. She provides hands on experiences for nurses seeking wound care certification and always makes time for those seeking a better understanding of wound care. She provides wound care/ostomy clinics at local cardiovascular surgery and general surgery offices, and she often receives written complimentary letters from previous patients and multiple verbal acknowledgments of appreciation related to her compassion and expertise.

 

Craig Smith, MSN, RN CCRN-A

Craig Smith, a leader in education, developed a monthly educational program focusing on foundational topics to refresh knowledge and promote patient safety in practice. His educational training blends didactic with hands on processes in the simulation lab to evaluate clinical competencies. As a professor, Craig received a 98% approval rate on lesson plans, and had 96% pass rates for students taking the NCLEX. At Providence, he evaluated the work flow of clinical nurse areas and developed LEAN processes while adhering to best practice standards using survey and rounding results to track clinical outcomes. Craig also worked with nurses that float to identify concerns regarding orientation to unfamiliar areas. By developing a survey and including these nurses in the decision-making processes, satisfaction went from 34% in 2014 to 72% presently. He serves as a mentor to nursing students and graduate level students, and assists other organizations and local colleges to develop skills fairs and simulation exercises.

 

About Providence Hospitals:

A part of LifePoint Health, Providence Hospitals is the leading provider of cardiovascular and orthopedic services in the Midlands. Providence is composed of two hospitals, thirteen physician practices, a network of rehabilitation centers, two sleep centers, a school of cardiac diagnostics and an accredited chest pain center. In total, Providence employs more than 2,000 dedicated staff. Founded in 1938 by the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, Providence is known statewide for outstanding clinical quality and compassionate care. The Providence open-heart surgery program has ranked consistently in the top 15 percent of open heart programs for the past six and one-half years. Both the orthopedics and cardiac services have received the South Carolina BlueCross BlueShield Blue Distinction Center designation. For more information, visit www.providencehospitals.com.