Jennifer Harrison
September 2023
Jennifer
Harrison
,
BSN, RN
Outpatient Cardiology
University of Louisville Physicians
Louisville
,
KY
United States
They work tirelessly to educate patients about heart failure and to manage their medications in the context of their other medical conditions. They keep a vigilant eye on every patient's volume status by monitoring their CardioMems readings and through weekly phone calls.
Paula Glover, RN and Jennifer Harrison, RN joined our ULP team and built our Cardio Mems program from the ground up. This is a program that was created and developed by the two of them, Drs. Rangaswamy and Piracha, as well as hospital staff at Jewish. We are the first and the largest Cardio Mems Program in the region, and it all started with one patient just a couple of short years ago. We recently implanted our 200th Cardio Mems unit!!! Without critical thinking, compassionate care and commitment to providing this new and innovative technology to our patients, our heart failure readmission rates would be greatly increased. It's because of their dedication that we have reduced readmission rates and delivered exceptional care to our patients. Specifically, these two nurses have gone above and beyond the expectations of their job responsibilities. They take time and adjust their schedules to be able to provide comprehensive education to our patients from the time their device is ordered to long after it's been implanted. They are very dedicated to their position and making sure every patient has a successful outcome. We could never have predicted how successful this program would be, but we know that it would have never grown into such a wonderful program without the dedication of these two nurses. We are so proud to have them on our team and more importantly, we are so thankful our patients have Paula and Jennifer to guide them.
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This is a very unique department in Cardiology. As a 2-person team, they manage to be at EVERY procedure for an implant of the Cardio Mems device, manage a list of 215+ patients on the fluid intake that has occurred, if any, and reach out to patients all while working on the process of new patients being referred to the programs well. They form friendships and become family to many of these patients. The care that Paula and Jennifer have for the patients is what we should have in our nursing team more. They will go above and beyond and manage the patients during holidays or extended time off if this is called for. When the office is closed for events of weather or Covid or any other matter they still are on it with managing the patients. We even have a particular patient who did not have family, and they were the care of checking in on her and offering the support that was needed. THIS IS GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND their job duties. I would love to see them be recognized for the hard work and dedication of all that they do for a program they have grown from less than 10 patients to 215 + with just two members and a handful of physicians.
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Paula and Jennifer are two of the hardest working nurses at UofL Health. They are responsible for managing the Cardio MEMS program which is an ancillary heart failure program structured to help patients stay out of the hospital. They work tirelessly to educate patients about heart failure and to manage their medications in the context of their other medical conditions. They keep a vigilant eye on every patient's volume status by monitoring their CardioMems readings and through weekly phone calls. They have also been known to go to patients' houses to troubleshoot issues with their Cardio MEMS pillow. They work in the outpatient and inpatient settings in order to provide comprehensive care to their patients. The role of a nurse is to be a patient advocate. You will not find stronger patient advocates than Paula and Jennifer. I wholeheartedly endorse them for the DAISY Award.
***
This is a very unique department in Cardiology. As a 2-person team, they manage to be at EVERY procedure for an implant of the Cardio Mems device, manage a list of 215+ patients on the fluid intake that has occurred, if any, and reach out to patients all while working on the process of new patients being referred to the programs well. They form friendships and become family to many of these patients. The care that Paula and Jennifer have for the patients is what we should have in our nursing team more. They will go above and beyond and manage the patients during holidays or extended time off if this is called for. When the office is closed for events of weather or Covid or any other matter they still are on it with managing the patients. We even have a particular patient who did not have family, and they were the care of checking in on her and offering the support that was needed. THIS IS GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND their job duties. I would love to see them be recognized for the hard work and dedication of all that they do for a program they have grown from less than 10 patients to 215 + with just two members and a handful of physicians.
***
Paula and Jennifer are two of the hardest working nurses at UofL Health. They are responsible for managing the Cardio MEMS program which is an ancillary heart failure program structured to help patients stay out of the hospital. They work tirelessly to educate patients about heart failure and to manage their medications in the context of their other medical conditions. They keep a vigilant eye on every patient's volume status by monitoring their CardioMems readings and through weekly phone calls. They have also been known to go to patients' houses to troubleshoot issues with their Cardio MEMS pillow. They work in the outpatient and inpatient settings in order to provide comprehensive care to their patients. The role of a nurse is to be a patient advocate. You will not find stronger patient advocates than Paula and Jennifer. I wholeheartedly endorse them for the DAISY Award.