From left: Nathaniel Fernando, RN; Yvonne Allwood, PCA; Sophia Kellier, PCA; Paula Flyangolts, RN; Miriam Lebowitz, RN; Magdalene Walcott, PCA; and Dmitry Yanovsky , MSN, RN.
After returning home from her stay at Mount Sinai Brooklyn, first in the Emergency Department and then at One North, a 35-bed medicine and telemetry unit at Mount Sinai Brooklyn, patient Enita N. Johnson mailed a letter of thanks to the staff, citing the “excellent professional nursing care,” she had received during her bout with influenza B.
Ms. Johnson wrote, “This letter is perhaps a bit lengthy. But having spent 42 years as an RN in the clinical as well as the educational field of nursing, it is rewarding to see the profession continue in the hands of such caring and competent persons.” She wrote that the staff “demonstrated a high level of concern and willingness to see that I received the care I needed and that I was as comfortable as possible.”
Dmitry Yanovsky, MSN, RN, Clinical Nurse Manager at One North, says he has other thank-you letters from patients that he shares with his staff of 50. The team makes a concerted effort to maintain a safe and caring environment for all of their patients, many of whom are elderly.
Daily nursing huddles are held at 8 am, enabling staff to understand the day’s workflow and communicate clearly with one another.
“When communication improves, clinical outcomes improve, as does the patient experience,” Dmitry says. “Our first priority is improving the patient experience of care. We discuss this day and night.”
Dmitry also makes patient rounds himself, checking in on patients to obtain feedback on their care and to make sure they are comfortable.
He attributes his unit’s recent success to the implementation—about six months ago—of TeamSTEPPS®, a program for improving collaboration and communication within an organization that originated in the U.S. Department of Defense and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and to Mount Sinai’s commitment to improving the patient experience.