We're all about children!
 March 2006
This edition:
Letter From Our Chair
Anyone who has ever been sick knows the importance of nursing care. The touch, the kindness, the thoughtful contemplation of how to actuate therapy, and initiate and improve therapeutics - all are parts of everyday nursing. In today's children's hospital, the nurse works closely with patients, families, therapists, and doctors. They are administrators within their unit, bedside pharmacists, and the first line of care. And they are still there when the patient is ready to be discharged. [read more] Feature Story Taking Care of Our Community's Children: Nursing at the Children's Hospital Kimberly Harris-Eaton, RN, MSN, wants to be frank and admit something in the simplest way: "I am honored to be able to take care of the nurses who take care of the babies of our community," she says. As the nurse manager of the 8D infant toddler unit, Harris-Eaton oversees a staff of nurses, student technicians, secretaries, clinical associates and volunteers. She voices her satisfaction with her staff - indeed, with the entire pediatric nursing body -- effortlessly and vociferously. [read more] Message From Our Medical Director
This is particularly true for our nurses, who I think of as the face and hands of the Children's Hospital, playing a critical role in everything we do. Every test or therapy that the doctors order would be for naught without the expertise and care delivered by our nursing colleagues. As medical staff, we rely on the bedside nurse to not only provide the usual patient data, but to read between the lines of the chart to understand what's really going on with the patients and their families. As researchers, we rely on nurse coordinators to make investigational studies happen. Finally, as educators we rely on nurses to get the information across to patients, families and trainees throughout the hospital. So for the hospital and medical staff, I salute our nurses, the most highly valued resource of any children's hospital. We'd be lost without Update From Our Administrator
When a child is seen in our clinics or hospital there are two things that occur. The MUSC Children's Hospital works hard to make sure that the treatments given to the children are the very best. Whether it is the physicians, nurses or technology, we believe we have the best. We also understand that not only do we treat the problem, but we also care for the child and the family. Have we listened to the families needs? Have we been courteous in the way we interacted with them? There are two ways that we find out how we have performed in the minds of our families. The first is that we randomly survey inpatients and outpatients. The second is that we constantly work with our Family Advisory Council to review various ways that we communicate with our families. They have given us excellent feedback and have corrected some our assumptions. Along with the rest of the MUSC Medical Center, the Children's Hospital is working with the Studer Group to evaluate our staff satisfaction as well as our patient satisfaction. Quint Studer, author of "Hardwiring Excellence", works with hospitals to improve the communication between caregivers and patients. This process is something that is a continuation of efforts we have had underway for some time. Studer will provide structure and methodology to make sure that we sustain improvements. The MUSC Children's Hospital is committed to providing the very best care possible for our patients. We are also focused on making sure that the interaction that our staff have with our patients and their families is meaningful and compassionate. Darby Children's Research Institute News
The DCRI celebrated its first anniversary with a wonderfully attended and varied, one-day poster session on Feb. 16. This session featured 81 posters covering a broad array of topics, including clinical, translational and basic research. It increased awareness of ongoing research and stimulated discussion about future research possibilities among attendees from across campus. We hope this celebration will become an annual event and opportunity to celebrate children's research with colleagues MUSC-wide. This event represents the first children's research day ever conducted at MUSC. More than 150 people from all six colleges, including Nursing, visited the Institute during the DCRI open-house. Nursing and ongoing nursing research efforts at MUSC were an important part of the session, emphasizing how important it is for all children's researchers across our six colleges to come together to share expertise. Several nurses presented at the session, and the College of Nursing sponsored a booth to get the word out about the start of a new chapter of the Society of Pediatric Nurses. [read more] A special thanks to the following individuals for their efforts in putting together Kids Connection each month. Managing Editor: Bernard L. Maria, MD, MBA Publisher: Jennifer Cherock (Trio Solutions Inc.) and Jessica Munday (Trio Solutions Inc.) Web design: Brian Dadin (Trio Solutions Inc.) Contributing Writers: Lyndon Key, Bernard Maria, Mary-Sue Lawrence, John Sanders, Philip Saul, Inderjit Singh |
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