It was an honor to represent the chapter in Chicago at Congress this year. The General Session speakers were exceptional and very entertaining this year. As always, I enjoyed networking with my colleagues in eChapter and want to thank Teri and all who worked so hard to organize the chapter luncheon—it was very nice and very well attended.
I would have to say this Congress was particularly special to me because I brought along two nurses on my staff—one of which was a first time attendee. They were particularly interested in the poster sessions and were inspired to bring a project back to our organization for trial. I believe the subject of the session was related to process improvement and involving the patient in their plan of care. From that, they decided to develop a hand-washing compliance improvement process. Our system has developed educational materials and in our pre-anesthesia unit patients and their families will be given feedback cards where they are invited to note on the card if they observed a care-giver of any discipline that did not wash their hands in front of them. This card can be anonymously filled out and deposited at the nurse’s station at any time during their visit. The nurse manager and medical director will utilize the cards to provide to their staff and ultimately improve care and our compliance with this very important standard. Who knows, if successful you may see us present in a year or two our own poster session.
Congress is intended to inspire and refresh the nursing professional in all of us. I think this year we achieved our goal!