Julie Carr
March 2014
Julie
Carr
,
RN, BSN
Medical Floor
Hendricks Regional Health
Danville
,
IN
United States

 

 

 

A patient was admitted to the Medical unit and family was trying to make a very difficult decision about whether or not to continue the patient's treatment due to challenges in pain management and a rapidly deteriorating responsiveness. Julie had advocated multiple times for the patient's comfort which involved paging the admitting physician repeatedly. Even though Julie is a part time staff member, she maintained continuity of care for this patient for 2 weeks. She was able to facilitate an open communication with family especially once the patient became unresponsive. She fought for the patient's comfort, even when it required a substantial increase in narcotics. Julie was able to maintain a calm environment for the family, in addition to caring for the rest of her assigned case load. When the patient passed, she and the family were able to have closure because of the relationship based care she provided.