Gerald
McGinnis
August 2011
Gerald
McGinnis
,
RN, BSN
Nursing informatics
Cerner Corporation
Kansas City
,
MO
United States

 

 

 

It is my honor to nominate a very deserving nurse for The DAISY Award, Mr. Gerald McGinnis, RN. He exemplifies the founding traits of a DAISY nurse who makes an extraordinary difference in the lives of patients in our care and also in the lives of our nurses every day.

Over the past 18 months, we have had the privilege of working with him on a day to day basis. He is knowledgeable, patient, compassionate and level headed. He has assisted our organization in taking nursing documentation, integration and quality to a new level. He is the nurse with an empathetic heart. He listens to staff and works to resolve patient care challenges using his expertise in nursing informatics and operational logic.

He understands the critical importance of engagement of bedside nurses and care givers who must own, design and change their documentation to match their best practice care processes and workflow. He has spent countless hours rounding during the day or night and working side by side with bedside nurses to advance the care we deliver. Rounding maintains his visibility and he has developed trusted relationships with the staff. He serves as co-chair of the Information Technology Nursing Shared Governance Council mentoring a staff nurse co-chair to lead the council and encouraging a budding informatics nurse. He never says “no” to a nurse. He listens, and assists the nurse in conveying what it is they need the system to do for them. He then translates that to an operable language that the engineers understand in order to enhance the product for the bedside nurse.

Go-lives, upgrades and conversions are orchestrated by the team and he conducts the nursing section. He is a valued member of the nursing executive team, always positive and brings a “we can get it done” attitude. He assures nurses are included in all steps of change including design, integration testing and education planning to mitigate risks to the project. The changes he has spearheaded have eliminated duplicate documentation and allowed nurses the time to do what they do best, care for our patients.

He exemplifies a “healing touch” presence and inspires others to deliver care whether they are at the bedside or behind the keyboard with a compassionate heart. Our nurses are so impressed with Gerald’s ownership of our success many of them believe he is an NCH employee.