Wow, what a week! I’m feeling very proud, slightly manic and if I’m honest, a little bit emotional.
Just a few weeks ago, I presented an update to the head of nursing, matrons and ward managers in the Medicine Business Group outlining our ‘Raising AKI Awareness’ campaign progress and specifically, the exciting IT developments. As usual, I ended my presentation with a ‘What’s Next?’ slide, one of the bullet points was:
- Showcase & celebrate our fantastic achievements
I urged the senior nurses to share the slides with their teams, thank them for their ongoing support and let them know just how much has been achieved in such challenging times. None of this would have been possible without their hard work and amazing dedication.
Well, we’ve certainly celebrated this week – a press release to the local media and our case study featured by ‘Think Kidneys’. It really has been fantastic to get our success story out there.
Even so, I wasn’t prepared for the level of interest and positive comments generated by showcasing our work hence the range of emotions I’m feeling – quite overwhelming, best move on….. Another bullet point on my ‘What’s Next?’ slide:
- It’s never ‘Job Done’ – Continue to strive to improve quality and patient safety
I don’t normally get so animated about technology, mainly because I don’t really understand it. Now don’t be fooled, I’m not a complete dinosaur – I proudly possess a CSE in typewriting (Grade 1 – that’s an ‘O’ Level, right?), can attach a document to an email with proficiency and I absolutely excel at online shopping! It’s hard to face up to one’s weaknesses but is it too shameful to admit that I’ve bowed to peer pressure and recently got myself a smartphone?
Despite my techno shortcomings, even I could appreciate what a tremendous innovation the IT Team had delivered, this IT stuff was magnificent. I kept on telling them so but they just shrugged their shoulders as though it was nothing. I didn’t get why they weren’t high fiving all round and punching the air, I certainly was! Everyone involved in the IT has been quietly brilliant. At times, I’m sure they were thinking ‘she’s like a dog with a bone’ – I prefer the term, tenacity!
Seriously though, this new IT development which auto populates the patients’ electronic records and displays the AKI alert on the plasma screens in the emergency department and ward areas is fantastic (you can read the case study here: https://www.thinkkidneys.nhs.uk/aki/case-studies/introduction-aki-specialist-nurse-raising-aki-awareness-campaign-stockport-nhs-trust/). It will really help improve communication and further raise awareness across the clinical teams. I realise for those of us passionate about improving AKI care, this is pushing an already open door – we all know that early recognition and timely interventions are absolutely vital to ensure our patients get the best care possible. Our challenge is getting that message across the wider healthcare teams, to our patients and indeed to the general public.
Over the coming weeks, I’ll be ‘blogging’ (how thoroughly modern) reflecting on the challenges, the highs and the lows that I’ve experienced since starting out in the role of specialist nurse and developing the AKI service at Stockport. Please come along for the ride, I hope it will be interesting, maybe mildly entertaining and you never know, it might actually be useful!
Wendy Oakes
Wendy Oakes, joined Stockport NHS Foundation Trust as AKI specialist nurse at the end of March 2016. Brand-new to the Trust, a brand-new role for the hospital and a brand-new role for her. With a background in critical care nursing, she has a PGCE in adult education which was useful when developing a competency based training programme for nurses providing continuous renal replacement therapy in ICU. She has experience of working at a senior level in critical care to drive quality improvements in patient care and safety.