September 2010
Trish
Jones
,
RN
CTICU
Medical University of South Carolina
Charleston
,
SC
United States
“I am nominating Trish Jones of CTICU for the Daisy award for her outstanding nursing care for all patients, even those who are not in the unit.
Trish is one of those nurses who thinks outside the box and uses critical thinking in her everyday work and even in a crisis such as one we experienced with a patient on a Heartmate. A Heartmate is a ventricular assist device (artificial heart if you will) that basically does the work of the left ventricle for patients who are in heart failure and are awaiting heart transplant.
The CTICU received a phone call from a nurse at Trident hospital’s ER. Apparently, one of our Heartmate patient’s went to Trident ER and demanded that they call us because the batteries of his Heartmate only had 10 minutes left and then it would die and not pump his blood! Trish fielded the call from the ER nurse and calmly informed her to send the patient to the chest pain center in ART of MUSC right away.
Trish informed the chest pain center of what was about to happen and borrowed batteries from another Heartmate patient that happened to be on our step down unit, 4 east. In the midst of all the chaos, she paged the Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) coordinator to inform her of the happenings.
Trish waited down by the ambulance bay to meet the patient as soon as he arrived. When the ambulance doors opened, our patient was there and still alive, but the VADs batteries were so low that it could not even produce an alarm. Trish immediately switched him over to the borrowed batteries and whisked off to the chest pain center.
If it wasn’t for Trish’s knowledge and problem solving that night that patient’s outcome may have been dire. We are proud in the CTICU to have her as part of the team and would like to recognize her for her efforts to help all patients we encounter.”
Trish is one of those nurses who thinks outside the box and uses critical thinking in her everyday work and even in a crisis such as one we experienced with a patient on a Heartmate. A Heartmate is a ventricular assist device (artificial heart if you will) that basically does the work of the left ventricle for patients who are in heart failure and are awaiting heart transplant.
The CTICU received a phone call from a nurse at Trident hospital’s ER. Apparently, one of our Heartmate patient’s went to Trident ER and demanded that they call us because the batteries of his Heartmate only had 10 minutes left and then it would die and not pump his blood! Trish fielded the call from the ER nurse and calmly informed her to send the patient to the chest pain center in ART of MUSC right away.
Trish informed the chest pain center of what was about to happen and borrowed batteries from another Heartmate patient that happened to be on our step down unit, 4 east. In the midst of all the chaos, she paged the Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) coordinator to inform her of the happenings.
Trish waited down by the ambulance bay to meet the patient as soon as he arrived. When the ambulance doors opened, our patient was there and still alive, but the VADs batteries were so low that it could not even produce an alarm. Trish immediately switched him over to the borrowed batteries and whisked off to the chest pain center.
If it wasn’t for Trish’s knowledge and problem solving that night that patient’s outcome may have been dire. We are proud in the CTICU to have her as part of the team and would like to recognize her for her efforts to help all patients we encounter.”