Profiles of Excellence- 2010

Thousands of Texas nurses demonstrate excellence in clinical practice, patient care, education, administration, and research each day. Good Samaritan annually recognizes the "best of the best" in the Houston/Texas Gulf Coast area through the Excellence in Nursing Awards. Profiles of the 2010 Gold Medalists are below.

Ms. Leonard continues, “Whether assigned to the role of triage or charge nurse, Stephanie has mastered the art of crisis prevention. She has cultivated the ability to survey her patients continually and utilizes critical-thinking skills to recognize states in which re-triage and evaluation are necessary. She has developed skills that allow early recognition of life-threatening disease states and recognizes the need for immediate intervention. She skillfully coordinates the flow of patients by reassigning fl oat and ancillary staff where care is needed most. Obviously, in this setting, one must be precise, organized, and goal-driven. Stephanie possesses all these skills and cooperates well with the team. She provides her care in a way that places her patients’ mind at ease and satisfies their desire to be treated as a whole person and not a disease state. Stephanie has been a tremendous asset to the emergency department team.”

Stephanie is a confident clinical practitioner, a generous mentor, a diligent research coordinator, an author, an enthusiastic presentation speaker, a community servant, and a patient advocate. However, her ability to evaluate a process and develop a plan to improve performance is where she truly excels. Her passion is evident in her enthusiastic approach to sharing her findings in process improvement initiatives with her clinical colleagues. Her participation as a Shared Governance leader and chair of the Clinical Practice Council and the Discharge Pathways Committee and membership in the Professional Nurse Advisory Council and Method redesign team have given her a forum for implementing her buffered lidocaine pain management project, mislabeled specimen project, disposition sign-out project, and split-flow throughput project. Stephanie has also developed multiple educational presentations about Emergency Department nursing, pain management and using iPods and PCAs as a positive link to patient outcomes. Stephanie’s innovations have improved patient satisfaction, patient safety, and department throughput. Her continual evaluation of the healthcare process and her ability to streamline and, ultimately, improve performance are what make her a true leader.

She regularly attends conferences to improve her skills, keep current in home health and palliative care, and to share research findings. Clowning also allowed Wyona to bring creativity and innovation to her training as a Green Belt in Six Sigma and states, “The clown has to come out a bit to allow the team to brainstorm at that high level in Six Sigma sessions. I encourage the team to be highly creative and playful and let go of their inhibitions to get the effective strategic planning sessions we desire.”

She is a PhD Student in nursing at Texas Woman’s University in Houston (2006 to present) and is entering the dissertation phase of this program. She has won numerous awards, received research grants, has been published professionally, and has implemented many programs.

Margaret "Maggi" Rachal Dodds, RN, MS, CPNP

Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital

2010 Gold Medalist: Nursing Education: Clinician

                  

Maggi Dodds believes that every person can make a difference in the life of a child. In the nomination essay, nurse colleague Floyd Hokaj writes, “Maggi’s dedication certainly goes beyond expectations, and her passion is to make people significant. She’s been a nurse for over 36 years, but has not lost the inspiration for excellence. Her standards are high, and her desire is far beyond status quo. Maggi demonstrates that nursing is not providing a service, it’s caring.

 

Her commitment to excellence is centered on building strong relationships with the patients, families, and the staff. People feel like they have a personal relationship with Maggi, and, more importantly, they do because she personalizes her care for each patient and is proof that the most important quality in nursing is the relationship and trust built between the nurse and patient. Maggi values people, steadfastly creating an environment where her central focus and attention are on the patient, and she makes the visit, often feared, an enjoyable experience. She doesn’t merely want to just get by or live in mediocrity--she wants to excel by choosing to make each day count.”

 

Laura Yosko visits the Allergy and Immunology Department at Texas Children’s Hospital regularly for her son’s treatment. Laura enthusiastically praises Maggi’s commitment to providing personalized care for her son, Jacob, by saying, “Thank you so much for recognizing Maggi and the great effort she puts into her work. She’s truly an amazing person, and I thank God for her every day. She has made a big impact in our lives. We don’t know how long Jacob will be a patient at the A&I Clinic, but I am sure it will be a very long time. But overall, our family has made a life-long friend in Maggi. There are not many practitioners or doctors left that are on a first-name basis with their patients or know more about the patient than just their illness and what they look like. Sometimes, families wait and wait to be seen and wonder if their questions will be answered at the end of the appointment. This has never been the scenario with Maggi. We’ve never felt rushed, and we don’t have questions when we leave. If we do think of questions, there has never been a time that I have called Maggi and she not returned my call--usually within minutes. If she doesn’t have the answer, then she finds out and calls back immediately. Maggi makes it a point to ask about our family, not just Jacob, and about our everyday lives between appointments. Our family is not new to illnesses, as our daughter had cancer at two years of age. During that time, we often felt we had no direction and the only time we spoke with anyone was during an appointment or an emergency, but this is not the case with Maggi. Having two illnesses in our family has been a trying time, and Maggi has been there every step of the way with direction and advice. All we can say is thank you to Nurse Maggi.”

 

Maggi has always adhered to a high standard of excellence in her work, whether writing schedules on the board, calling patients ahead of visits, sitting for infusions when others are unavailable, or summarizing laboratory values for patients. Nurse Manager Kim Duong remembers, “Despite Maggi’s busy schedule, she makes time for those special favors. I had a fellow TCH employee call me about suggestions for her son because she was running out of ideas regarding his allergies, so I directed the call to Maggi. After the mother’s conversation, I called her to follow-up. The sound of the mother’s voice had changed from unsure panic to calm relief because Maggi had assured her that she was doing the right things and that we could easily see her son if things did not improve.”

Representing Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine in an exemplary manner, Maggi advocates for children and adults with primary immune deficiencies and serves as a leader in the National Immune Deficiency Foundation. In 2009, she helped the foundation plan and implement a first-of-its-kind youth conference to encourage education, empowerment, and fellowship in Houston. Due to the success of this project, subsequent programs were launched targeting youth with primary immune deficiency and focusing on providing resources for their transition to adult care. In 2010, she worked with the National Immune Deficiency Foundation to take medication reimbursement issues to local representatives and legislators on Capitol Hill to advocate for improved healthcare for youth and adults with immune deficiency.

 

She is the author of several scholarly manuscripts and has been invited to speak at national meetings about the best use of resources to facilitate the transition of youth with primary immune deficiency into the school system, as well as practical approaches for affected individuals to navigate successfully through the healthcare system.

 

Because Maggi has raised three sons, she is a lifelong volunteer and advocate of Boy Scouts of America. Maggi is a selfless spirit who focuses her energy on making the lives of others better through her work. She has the ability to encourage patients to be actively involved in their own care; sharing in the successes and failures and empowering them to be part of a dynamic healthcare partnership. She strives to provide quality, unbiased care to each and every patient she serves. Her colleague, Floyd Hokaj, remarks, “Maggi is the one I seek out to ask questions regarding patient care. She takes pride in the care she provides. I admire her and hold her in high esteem, and she’s my role model for what a nurse should be.”

 

 

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Nancy Bergstrom, PhD, RN, FAAN

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Nursing

2010 Gold Medalist: Nursing Education: Faculty

               

Dr. Nancy Bergstrom has devoted much of her professional life to nursing education, research, and service; fulfilling the tripartite mission of higher education. Prior to receiving her doctorate, Dr. Bergstrom taught in undergraduate programs over an eight-year period. She was a popular and respected member of the faculty, but she completed doctoral study so she could prepare to be a researcher and teacher. After receiving her PhD in 1981, Dr. Bergstrom combined the roles of mentor and academic scholar, teaching research and theory topics to master’s students and, later, doctoral students and junior faculty.

 

Throughout her teaching tenure, Dr. Bergstrom created an effective learning environment for her students and often says to them on the first day, “The purpose of your being in this class is to prepare you to graduate.” Students hold Dr. Bergstrom in high regard and consistently report that they enjoy working as a team with her while fulfilling their research requirements. A recent nurse graduate commented, “Dr. Bergstrom is caring and helpful. She has high expectations, but she made me believe in myself.” The majority of her students have presented posters at local and regional conferences. Dr. Bergstrom pursued her own research and invited some of her students to serve as paid research assistants at the University of Nebraska when she and her colleague Barbara Braden developed and tested the Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk.

 

Students who complete doctoral dissertations under Dr. Bergstrom’s mentorship are encouraged to submit manuscripts for publication. Because Dr. Bergstrom believes that financial support, as well as other support, is important for student research, she has worked to increase funding and recognition by serving in leadership roles for numerous professional organizations and foundations. She recently organized an aging and chronic illness research interest group to facilitate newer investigator research and obtained funding to support research. Additionally, Dr. Bergstrom’s own scholarship has flourished with funding from the Division of Nursing, NIH’s National Institute for Nursing Research, National Institute on Aging, and other professional and foundation sources. Dr. Bergstrom and former doctoral student Dr. Mary Pat Rapp are co-investigators on an NIH-funded study and are currently conducting a multi-site, Phase III Clinical Trial in the U. S. and Canada to test turning interventions for pressure ulcer prevention.

Dr. Bergstrom chaired government panels to create guidelines for the Prediction and Prevention of Pressure Ulcers for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. As one of the earliest evidence-based practice initiatives, the work was pivotal in calling attention to the need for preventing pressure ulcers rather than focusing only on treatments. More than 2 million copies of the guidelines were distributed immediately after the work was completed. Dr. Bergstrom served in leadership roles in numerous voluntary positions aimed at enhancing nursing research, funding for new investigators, and support for doctoral students and newer faculty. Dr. Bergstrom served as President of the Midwest Nursing Research Society, Chair of the Council of Nurse Researchers, as well as member of the Board of the American Nurses Foundation, the Council for Nursing Science and Nursing Research Roundtable; all of which afforded special opportunities to influence nursing research and create greater support for research.

 

At UTHealth School of Nursing, Dr. Bergstrom leads the Center on Aging and currently teaches “Theory Development” and other topics related to developing and completing research. She also chairs dissertation committees and serves on candidacy examinations.

 

Dr. Sharon K. Ostwald, UTHealth School of Nursing Professor and Isla Carroll Turner Chair in Gerontological Nursing, wrote in her nomination essay, “Dr. Bergstrom leads and teaches by example and rolls her sleeves up and works right beside her students. Dr. Bergstrom’s research, always focused on clinical problems, has informed the area of pressure ulcer prediction and prevention. She received the Sigma Theta Tau International Episteme Award for a significant breakthrough in nursing science in part due to the development of the Clinical Practice Guidelines and her research related to pressure ulcer prevention. In July, Sigma Theta Tau International inducted Dr. Bergstrom, as one of the first 22 inductees, into the Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame. Induction in the Hall of Fame is a singular and important recognition of the significance of her research in predicting and preventing pressure ulcers.

Visitors to Dr. Bergstrom’s office will immediately notice shelves filled with professional awards, certificates, plaques, and commendations, along with photos of her nieces and nephews and champion show beagles. Over the years, Dr. Bergstrom has created a supportive learning environment and envisioned nursing science as a tool to guide practice for both students and faculty and for the benefit of patients. When asked during the video interview to reflect on her life’s work, Dr. Bergstrom said, “When I was a nurse at the bedside, I had the opportunity to impact one patient at a time. As a teacher, I could have an impact on students, who, in turn, helped more patients. Since becoming a nurse researcher, my collaborations and work have allowed me the opportunity to impact literally millions of patients around the world. I always tell my team and students to keep the ultimate focus of their research on the patient and improving patient.
 

 

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Jean Dols, PhD, FACHE, RN, NEA-BC

CHRISTUS Health System

2010 Gold Medalist: Nursing Administration and Leadership

 

                  

 

Dr. Hean Dols is both a “universal facilitator and a guiding hand,” writes nominator and friend Dr. Ron Cookston (Executive Director of Gateway to Care). “Jean is a nurse with outstanding professional skills and system knowledge. More importantly, she is a person that quietly and patiently inspires others to become the best they can be. She is able to hear a new opportunity while others fall back on what they have done in the past--even though the past solution may not be the best solution in the present situation.”

 

Dr. Dols received a Bachelor of Science from the College of St. Teresa in Winona/Rochester, Minnesota, and a Master of Science and Doctorate from Texas Woman’s University in Houston. She is Board Certified in Nursing Administration, Advanced and is a American College of Healthcare Executives Fellow. A healthcare administrator with more than 20 years of varied and increasingly responsible leadership positions in nursing, strategic planning, information technology, development, research, outsourced services, and patient/staff education.

Dr. Cookston continues, “Jean exercises creativity in everything she does. Her list of innovations is almost unbelievable. However, I have been in close enough association with her to have observed and, in many instances, helped with many of them. Many people talk about innovation. Jean has a history of implementing innovation that has positively improved care and is rarely recognized.”

 

As the Senior System Director of Nursing Excellence and Research with the CHRISTUS Health System, she supports the design and implementation of projects and programs that improve nursing practice and the quality of patient care services. She has initiated programs to develop the leadership skills of Chief Nurse Executives, Directors, and Nurse Managers through role definition, mentor programs, formal education programs, and orientation.

 

Dr. Dols has focused on nurses and management in the CHRISTUS Health System and initiated a system-wide unit level nursing dashboard with nursing-sensitive indicators, facilitated monthly review, and initiated quality improvement efforts related to the nursing metrics. She has conducted and published multiple research studies on the retention, management, and the alignment of incentives for the four different generations of nurses currently in the workforce. She initiated the Catholic Health Care Nurse Executive Forum, an organization designed to promote sharing solutions and resources between nursing health care leaders at Catholic hospitals and schools of nursing.

 

Dr. Dols provides research education and operational expertise to facilitate effective and timely implementation of clinical guidelines and protocols. Dr. Dols developed a centralized Research Department, including installation of a space reporting system, effort reporting system, expenditure evaluation, and a Federal Wide Assurance recognizing 21 IRBs. The department established an affiliate indirect rate of 22.5% and individual grant/research rate of 42% with 222 active protocols. Her work streamlined research protocol processing to 14 days or less.

 

In addition to focusing on research, nursing metrics, and education and training for nurses, Dr. Dols is highly successful in generating research funding. After she revamped an employee fundraising program, donations to community causes more than doubled from $80,000 to more than $170,000 in three years. She also created a Development Center and led an interdisciplinary assessment to identify external funding needs and secured grants and donations of $17,500,000 in federal, state, local, and private funds annually. Her processes decreased grant initiation time from three months to less than 30 days.

Using national, local, and survey information, she produced annual assessments of the Harris County Community Health Status used to plan the delivery of healthcare services. Dr. Dols has affected patient care at the county level and has facilitated the development, community presentation, and initial implementation of the Harris County Hospital District Board’s 2015 Strategic Plan and led the organization’s design and implementation of a five-year, $75,000,000 information strategic plan and a successful Y2K program. Dr. Dols designed and implemented a countywide community based health and patient education program that resulted in significant improvements in patient health status and adherence to preventive health protocols throughout Harris County. Moreover, she developed an early detection, prevention, and community outreach program that identified and assisted medically underserved population groups improve their health status; reaching more than 55,000 individuals annually.

 

Dr. Dols developed an Executive Business Plan that obtained community support and funding for a Telephone Nurse Triage program called the “Ask Your Nurse” service, which provided recommendations to more than 16,000 callers in FY2005 to use an alternative service rather than Houston’s overcrowded ERs. Dr. Dols has also instituted an Asian Outreach program which worked to identify barriers to preventive healthcare and assisted individuals with obtaining health care services, screenings, and health education. This program successfully assisted 500 Asian women complete the three-phase approach to breast health – education, clinical breast exam, and mammogram – for the first time. Similarly, she has implemented a bilingual health information line, which provides 1,100 health information scripts and a specialized preteen health information line – with more than 400 callers accessing the line each week for more than nine years.

 

In addition to her numerous innovations, Dr. Dols serves on many boards, councils, and committees; has received many awards; and has been published numerous times. Despite her impressive accomplishments, her focus has always been on people. During the day of video filming, Dr. Dols was genuinely interested in the interviewer, videographer, and photographer and, often, would redirect the focus from her to ask them questions. She has a way of making her staff and others feel completely comfortable and at ease when they are around her. Dr. Cookston summarizes Dr. Dols by saying, “Given the challenges in the current health care service delivery system and the uncertainty that health care reform is generating, there is a great need for leaders like Jean to represent nursing as the key component of the service system that insures that patients, rather than clinical procedures, remain the focus.”

 

Jean and Stephen Dols have been married 36 years. They have a son Christopher and a daughter, Cassandra Dols Smith.