May 3, 2024
Celebrating our extraordinary nurses
Our nurses are leaders, clinicians, and patient advocates. They transform care and improve health for our members and communities.
Sarah Lee, RN, teaches a class to help new parents learn about breastfeeding. She educates them about what to expect and when to get help.
At Kaiser Permanente, we have nearly 74,000 nurses. In honor of Nurses Week, we salute them for leading with purpose and advancing the nursing profession.
These 9 profiles show the many ways our nurses use best practices and new evidence to transform patient care.
Our nurses create cultures of excellence. And they improve the lives of the members, patients, and communities we serve.
Empowering nurses
Eziaku “Aku” Chijioke, RN, is the Magnet program director and department manager of specialty nurses for hemodialysis, wound care, and peripherally inserted central catheters at the Kaiser Permanente Ontario Medical Center in Ontario, California.
She also co-leads a shared governance council that includes nurses and labor partners. Together, they set goals for nurses to improve patient care. Chijioke also works closely with leaders from other councils within the hospital to carry out the work. One of their recent goals involved helping patients eat and walk within 12 hours of surgery, leading to faster recoveries.
The goal included identifying the types of patients who were good candidates, educating staff, performing routine knowledge checks, and providing peer-to-peer coaching when needed.
The hospital increased the percentage of patients eating within 12 hours after surgery from 39% in 2022 to 75% in 2024. The percentage of patients walking within 12 hours after surgery increased from 42% in 2022 to 96% in 2024.
Using the latest research to improve care
Paul D. Faulkner, RN, is a professional practice consultant for Kaiser Permanente in Colorado. He develops procedures and guidelines that ensure nurses provide high-quality patient care.
He also holds a position on an interdisciplinary committee that includes doctors, pharmacists, and other nurses.
Recently, Faulkner called the committee’s attention to new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on pink eye, a common infection among school-age children. The guidance allows nurses to treat a mild condition without antibiotics.
Since nurses started following the new guidance in April 2023, the region experienced a 50% decrease in antibiotic usage and waste, with no increase in visits to urgent care or the emergency room.
Helping members get the care they need, when they need it
Tessa Hlavaty, RN, is the lead nurse for ob-gyn at the Kaiser Permanente Interstate Medical Office East in Portland, Oregon. She provides patient care. She helps develop training for medical assistants and nurses. She also organizes staff and procedures.
Recently, she worked with nurse educators to teach registered nurses how to perform Pap tests. Pap tests help detect cervical cancer. They’ve historically been performed by doctors, nurse practitioners, and nurse-midwives.
Many Kaiser Permanente members in the Northwest had delayed getting their regular Pap tests due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before nurses were trained to conduct the test in fall 2022, members had been waiting up to 3 months for Pap test appointments. Now, in spring 2024, members can usually get an appointment within 4 weeks.
Hlavaty was instrumental in creating training material to teach other nurses how to create a comfortable and inclusive environment. Pap tests may raise past trauma-related concerns for some patients.
Supporting new mothers
Sarah Lee, RN, works at the Kaiser Permanente Bellevue Medical Center in Bellevue, Washington. She provides nursing care for the general surgery clinic and the ob-gyn department.
As an international board-certified lactation consultant, Lee also helps new mothers. In this role, she helped change the current and established approach to treating milk blebs — or blocked nipple pores — in Kaiser Permanente patients in Washington.
One of her patients had received basic medical care for a milk bleb, but the problem persisted. Recognizing the limitations of basic treatments, Lee dug into new research on breast inflammation.
She found that some treatments — namely, those that involve needles, deep massage, or heating pads — had the potential to aggravate inflammation and introduce infection. She also learned that merely opening the blocked pore can fail to address underlying inflammation.
Lee advocated for the use of anti-inflammatory treatments, such as prescription-strength steroid cream. Working closely with the patient’s primary doctor, she ensured the patient received steroid cream therapy, and it reduced the inflammation.
Lee is in the process of sharing this alternative treatment approach with all Kaiser Permanente lactation nurses in Washington.
Helping members manage pain
Sandra Tompkins, RN, is a case manager for Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii. One part of her role is to help patients manage their pain and opioid use.
She improved patient safety and care quality by developing a 6-week program to help patients manage pain without medication. Her approach was based on an existing research study in which Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii participated. She worked with a multi-disciplinary team including doctors, dietitians, wellness coaches, physical therapists, and a psychologist to expand the program.
The program teaches patients various skills, including an anti-inflammatory style of eating and relaxation techniques to manage pain without medication. Patients in the program reported feeling a marked improvement in their enjoyment of and outlook on life.
Reducing infection rates
Mhagsy Celestino, RN, works in the intensive care unit at the Kaiser Permanente Antioch Medical Center in Antioch, California.
She co-led a project to decrease the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infections at the Antioch facility. These infections represent approximately 9% of all infections that occur in hospital patients. They increase the risk of other infections. And they increase the length and cost of hospital stays.
To address these infections, Celestino pioneered a series of steps based on a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new process allows nurses to evaluate catheter lines. If a patient with a catheter line meets specific criteria, the nurse can remove the catheter without the delay of waiting for a physician order.
She also helps the hospital prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections by educating nursing staff.
Catheter-associated urinary tract infection rates have plummeted. In 2020, the hospital reported 9 cases. By October 2023, there were zero. Patients say they feel more supported, safer, and more comfortable now that nurses can act more swiftly. Soon, the new process that Celestino created will be standard practice for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California.
Simplifying guidelines to improve care quality
Sherri Shaw, RN, works at the Kaiser Permanente Appointment and Advice Call Center in Vallejo, California. She is also the co-chair of a nurse committee on patient quality.
She led the committee in revising a set of guidelines for cough, cold, flu, and COVID-19 symptoms. The guidelines had become complicated, repetitive, and time-consuming for nurses to use when assessing patients.
She refined and simplified the language. She deleted repetitive information. The revised guidelines mean nurses can more quickly and effectively assess patients. Patients benefit from getting an accurate diagnosis in less time.
Helping nursing students get real-world experience
Lesia Jackson, RN, is a lead professional development specialist for Kaiser Permanente in Georgia. She helps develop educational content for the nursing team to ensure they deliver high-quality care.
Jackson came up with the idea of a residency program to provide more real-world preparation for licensed practical nurses. The LPN graduate program launched in Georgia at the end of 2022. By spring 2024, 14 people have graduated.
She first heard about new nursing graduates needing supervised clinical training and experience from a local technical college where she sits on an advisory board. Concerns were spreading about the lack of in-person training due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, Jackson put together an accredited training program. She makes sure to keep tabs on the residents during training. Meeting all their training needs also helps Kaiser Permanente stand out as an employer of choice as the LPN residents search for jobs.
New efficiencies improve the patient experience
Audrey M. Trinkes, RN, works at the Clinical Contact Center for Kaiser Permanente in the Mid-Atlantic States. She takes calls from patients in the Northern Virginia, metropolitan Washington, D.C., and metropolitan Baltimore area. Patients call for a variety of reasons ranging from routine illnesses to emergencies that result in a 911 call.
Trinkes serves on 2 formal committees that seek to empower nurses and transform care through nurse-led initiatives. In her role on one of these committees, Trinkes introduced a change that supports efficiency and care quality.
Clinical Contact Center staff must quickly access patients’ medical histories, care notes, privacy authorizations, and appointment information. Doing so ensures patients receive timely and appropriate care.
To help make Clinical Contact Center staff more efficient, Trinkes and the committee developed a technology super user role within the department. Super users help colleagues with questions and provide support as needed.
