The DAISY Nurse Leader Award is designed to reward and recognize leaders who create an environment where excellence in nursing thrives. Teresa is a lifelong learner and a natural leader and a shining example of what The DAISY Nurse Leader Award stands for. Her entire career has been spent helping others become their best selves. In every venue that Teresa leads, she creates an environment that produces excellence.
Over the past 10 years, I have had the opportunity to work with Teresa in many different capacities. She returned to acute care, after spending time in Home Health and Infusion as a leader in ambulatory nursing. In that role, she was a beacon of hope for her team, and they grew professionally under her leadership. Her transition back into the hospital setting found her in the medicine division, where she assumed unit management responsibilities and quickly stabilized her unit into a high-performing team.
Teresa always said "yes" when asked to take on more. When the Nurse Administrator for Medicine took a new role in a Vidant community hospital, Teresa agreed to take on the role of Administrator. Under her leadership, there was a consistent and steady improvement in the quality of patient care, retention of nurses, and overall team member engagement across the division. Her managers flourished, she found ways to challenge them to grow and learn, and she set high expectations for leadership presence, performance, and interprofessionalism. Under her leadership, she established dyad leadership models for all of her units. This leadership model strengthened the provider nurse partnership around quality, safety, and team performance. She was always eager to take on leadership for organizational improvement projects, and when Teresa was leading the team, you could count on great results. Teresa is a bridge-builder, a possibilitarian, and a curious and innovative leader. When she sees opportunities for improvement you can believe that she will motivate and inspire those around her to be their best.
As the VP for Teresa assumed another role in the health system, Teresa was the logical choice to transition into that leadership role. Not only did she assume oversight of this body of work, but she chose to return to school to advance her education. She found a way to juggle work and school and was successful in achieving a Ph.D. in Nursing. Less than 1% of nurses in the country achieve a doctoral degree.
As a leader, she continues to be a role model for what can be accomplished if you set your mind to it. Year after year, Teresa has motivated and inspired others to produce improved results, she has built strong interprofessional partnerships and always encourages those around her to take risks to improve their performance. In 2020, COVID-19 arrived to Eastern NC. Teresa willingly stepped in to be my partner in leading the team to develop the IP/OP response plan for the 9 hospital acute care division. This work required her to give tirelessly to the preparation work, thoughtfully support other leaders in developing action plans and use her performance improvement tools to produce a response plan to keep patients, families, and team members safe. Having Teresa as my #2 in this work allowed us to advance the work, find a semblance of work-life balance and communicate with stakeholders across the system, how we would respond to the planned surge of patients expected to arrive in our hospitals.
Teresa is a nurse leader who can be counted on to develop, inspire, influence, and advance excellence in our nursing culture. I am so proud of the work that she has done to lead improvements in patient care for our health system. I am grateful for her service to Vidant Health Nursing and to her selfless service to those we serve. She is a true DAISY Nurse Leader.