LeBonheur – Nursing Team
The nursing team at LeBonheur is on a journey to achieve magnet status, the highest national recognition a hospital can receive for excellence in nursing. The work of nurses requires passion and compassion, especially when dealing with children. “I think in order to practice nursing with children, you have to have a love and a passion for children,” said Chief Nursing Officer Kathie Krause. “When you take care of a child, they’re not just little adults. We have to look at the developmental age of the child, we have to look at the neurological development of the child, what their life and past experiences are.” But one thing is equally important: “We take care of an entire family,” said Krause. “A child is a part of a family.” Krause said a big part of nursing at LeBonheur requires educating children and their families. “The time is going to come where you have to make that child, help that child be independent and that comes through a lot of education with the child themselves,” said Krause. Education is especially important in LeBonheur’s Diabetes Clinic. “We do our own education classes actually here in the clinic,” said Diabetes Clinic Nurse Coordinator, Nadia Wilson. In addition to classes, nurses have created “diabetes care notebooks,” to help their young patients manage things such as their medication lists, logs and school plans. “We hope this will be something that will help prepare our patients and their families, not just to take care of their diabetes here at LeBonheur, but also as they transition, as our older patients transition to adult care,” said Wilson. Whether transitioning educating, or treating, LeBonheur nurses said their most important task is caring. “The work of nursing is about caring, and that’s what we do,” said Krause. The nursing team at LeBonheur hopes their efforts to embrace patient and family centered care will help them to join the 6 percent of hospitals nationwide that have received Magnet status.
