A nurse who breaks her finger at work. A nurse with a high-risk pregnancy who needs to take it easy. A nurse with tennis elbow or a strained back.
Physical injuries used to take nurses out of the game, sometimes for weeks or months. They would recover at home or come to work but sit at a desk doing paperwork.
A Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center program changed all that. The program, called Care Ambassadors, gives nurses the opportunity to visit patients in the hospital without performing the heavier physical work normally required of them.
“If you’re a nurse, you can still provide a level of care experience, even if you can’t do your bedside duties,” said Pamela Spain, area experience leader for South Sacramento, who started the program. “That’s really meaningful.”
After 6 years at South Sacramento, the Care Ambassadors program is being introduced at other Northern California hospitals, including those in Sacramento, San Jose, and Modesto.
Reconnecting practice to purpose
Part of the success of the program is that nurses are doing something they like while getting a safe place to heal, Spain said.
“As nurses they walk away saying, ‘I forgot what it was like to connect and really see a patient,’” Spain added. “When they get the opportunity to do that, it reconnects their practice to their purpose.”
Care ambassadors make sure patients are comfortable, communication lines with caregivers are open, and that they know what their care plan is.
“I loved doing it,” said Lissa Thazhathumariyil, RN, a medical surgical nurse at Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento, who became a care ambassador while her broken finger healed. “I feel like that personal connection I was making with the patients was very helpful for both of us. I love talking to people, holding their hands, comforting them. That’s healing.”
Thazhathumariyil recalled a patient who started to cry when she asked him what was important.
“Gratitude,” he replied.
“He had terminal cancer, and he really wanted to talk about the things he was grateful for in his life,” said Thazhathumariyil.
Last November, Nekishaun Henderson, RN, came down with tennis elbow and was told she shouldn’t do her normal hospital nursing duties.
She stayed at home for a while, but that got boring and depressing. Then she joined Care Ambassadors.
“I really enjoyed going from unit to unit talking to different patients,” said Henderson, who works the night shift and ended up on the alternative work program 4 months. “I like helping people go from feeling frustrated to happier. I love to be able to turn something around.”
One man she visited was upset that he didn’t get to choose his food for dinner. He had been asleep when someone came to take his order.
“I asked our staff to come by and follow up with him, and they did,” said Henderson. “He was a different man after that. Sometimes it’s just communication that will open doors for people.”
On another occasion, Henderson helped an elderly woman change her primary care physician by calling member services with her.
“I’m a nurse by nature, not just a nurse at work,” said Henderson. “That assignment was really good for me.”
