Atlanta United visited Children's Healthcare of Atlanta to surprise and delight a few staff members who have been working hard, especially during the pandemic, on Wednesday, September 23rd. Four special staff members were honored, two from Egleston's Campus and two from Scottish Rite's Campus. Find out why Cathy Caron, James Ludemann, Heather Miller and Savanna Ziegler were nominated by their peers.
Cathy Caron, Scottish Rite's Family Experience in SR Inpatient
“Cathy consistently goes above and beyond for our patients/families and strives for excellence each day. During COVID-19, Cathy was persistent in ensuring our families felt cared for and stayed informed throughout their inpatient stay. Because of her incredible commitment to our families and her strong teamwork skills with fellow unit staff, she helped lead the unit to its highest overall patient satisfaction rating and far exceeded the system-wide benchmark in the most unprecedented times.” – Alice White (Senior Program Coordinator)
James Ludemann, Clinical Patient Educator at SR Clinic
“As soon as the pandemic was identified, James volunteered to staff wherever he could be used and is always willing to do whatever is needed for our patients. James has continued to ensure that our patients’ education needs were answered while we navigated a huge change in patient volumes and the number of patients seen in clinic. James is always an advocate for the patients, and he speaks up when he notices that there is something that we need to improve, and he always has a lot of great ideas for providing what is needed. We are so fortunate to have someone that is so dedicated to our patients!” – Kimberly Falgoust (SR Clinic Manager)
Heather Miller, Director of HEM/ONC at SR
Heather Miller is clear, decisive, courageous, passionate and those attributes shone throughout COVID-19. Her ability to drive difficult and immediate decisions ensured our clinics and inpatient units stayed open, safe, and fully operational for every new and existing Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant patient.” - Racheal Ogletree (EG Clinic Manager)
Savanna Ziegler, Clinical Patient Educator in EG Inpatient
“As a nurse educator, Savanna was tasked with figuring out how to successfully onboard a new graduate nurse cohort during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Aflac Center has 10 new nurses who started in August. Nine of these nurses were new graduate nurses whose last semester of nursing school was during the height of COVID, so many of their senior practicums were canceled or moved to virtual. Given this information, Savanna proactively anticipated the need to look at our onboarding process and adjust to meet these new nurses where they were. She connected with each of them around graduation and had them complete surveys to identify areas of opportunity, strengths and anxieties around starting orientation. Based off this information, Savanna worked to adjust their orientation and onboarding, creating Google classrooms to encourage virtual learning and social distancing, adding additional preceptor support and collaborating with our simulation educators to add in time dedicated to nursing basics and skills practice. Savanna has spent countless hours ensuring our new nurses have the support and training needed to ensure they are successful in the Aflac Center. She has become a beacon of joy and encouragement and without her we would not be able to ensure our unit has the clinical staff needed to provide our patients and families with the highest level of care possible. Savanna met every challenge she was faced with head on. Her innovative thinking and flexibility has enabled our units to successfully take on COVID-19. I am so proud of what she has accomplished.” – Alison Bolt (EG Inpatient Manager)
Check out photos below of their surprise and delight. Thank you Cathy, James, Heather and Savanna for all your hard work. We appreciate you and the rest of your co-workers at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
