Mona Ohmart
September 2023
Mona
Ohmart
,
BSN-BC, RN, CBN
PACU
TriHealth Good Samaritan Hospital
Cincinnati
,
OH
United States

 

 

 

In fact, there are many shifts where Mona will stop her own work and come down to the unit to round and help where needed.
As a team, we would like to recognize our assistant nurse manager as a nominee for the TriHealth Nurse Leader DAISY Award. Throughout my career as a nurse, I have worked in several different types of units amongst several different nursing leadership styles. Before I came to the PACU I did not realize there was a difference between those who manage and those who lead, until I had the privilege to work alongside my assistant nurse manager.

Our ANM is committed to leadership through her continued commitment to improving current process practices as well as to creating an environment amongst team members to accept changes to current process practices. She has worked for months to foster positive working relationships amongst our team as well as other team leaders from other units. For instance, she consistently dedicates time to speaking to each team member through individual rounding, touching upon what is working well on our unit and what needs to be improved. She then collectively identifies these areas for improvement, and we discuss them as a whole unit. Then, if needed, she takes concerns to help improve certain processes to senior leadership.

As a result of her weekly rounding, it was identified that improvements to throughput needed to be made which maintains patient and family satisfaction. As a result, she generated quarterly reports, organized as bar graphs that measured and compared the amount of wait time spent in PACU for beds and on each individual unit. These results were used to identify and communicate to other leadership departments the wait times for available beds in each unit.

In addition to her fostering positive working relationships and proactively implementing process improvement changes, our ANM exhibits strong leadership by regularly working the unit when short-staffed. In fact, there are many shifts where she will stop her own work and come down to the unit to round and help where needed. This includes relieving nurses for a lunch break, assisting the charge nurse in pre-op, or taking a patient assignment. She also instills confidence as a strong leader through her excellent knowledge of unit and hospital protocols.

She is an excellent resource for the staff when communication needs to be made which often results in the best interest of the patient and families. Most importantly, she is a compassionate leader. She models a culture based upon empathy and respect towards each other, the patients and their families as well as towards other leadership and staff on other units. I enjoy coming to work each day knowing I have strong confidence in my leader that she will consistently do what is best for the team, the patients, and their families. I also feel comfortable expressing concerns that impact the quality of care and am confident in her ability to escalate those concerns in a timely and professional manner.

In addition, she continuously promotes team unity through monthly activities geared toward improving morale and retention. She also takes the time to send regular notes of appreciation to staff members who continue to practice TriHealth’s S.E.R.V.E values.