Staff Spotlight

	Karen Lasher, Nursing Services Administrator
	On Walton and diversity... I think we have a very diverse group of people here at Walton. We probably have a fair number of male RNs, LPNs, and CNAs. In turn, we also deal with a very diverse patient population. Therefore, we strive to be on top of different cultural thoughts and ideas.

On Walton, nursing and growth...

I think that one of my goals is to be able to provide various growth opportunities for the staff. One of the things that we've recently done was to provide the CNA's with an in-house educational course. In order to qualify, the CNA's had to have been working at Walton for at least six months, and have a performance evaluation of at least 3.5 or greater to be considered for the course. We were looking for those star performers. And we taught them advanced skills - things like simple dressing changes, how to do bladder scans, how to do in and out catheters, so that they would be able to do some things that a regular CNA can not do. This program provided our CNA's with some additional education, additional responsibility with the patient, and also gave them an opportunity for advancement. And it made some of them to think about becoming nurses. This kind of gave them a feel like "is this really what I want to do?"

From the nursing side, we are always encouraging our RN's who do not have their Bachelors Degrees to go back to school. And if there are any particular things that they can do here, I try to find the skill levels to match those needs. And it is my goal that every RN that works for Walton becomes a Certified Rehabilitation Registered Nurse (CRRN). In order to do that, we have provided education for them, we have sent some of the nurses to core curriculum through ARN for education. For example, we have hosted a core curriculum class here last spring, and a number of Walton, as well as outside nurses have attended.   We currently have probably 14 people who are CRRN's.

The other thing that I am looking at for our RN group is providing education for them, so that I can have specialists in certain areas. Things like diabetes, etc. Because we are a small facility, and there is not much room for growth career-wise, we are trying to create growth through education and development.

On Fulfillment...

If you ask any nurse, or any CNA, or just about anybody who has any contact with the patients, anybody who works in rehab, ask them what   their fulfillment is, and they will tell you it's the miracles they see every day. It is watching a patient that can't swallow go home on a regular diet, it is just the little things that we take for granted, that those people are trying to relearn, it's watching those things happen that gives us the fulfillment.

On Culture...

I remember when I came to Walton, we had a very different culture from what we have today. Your cultures change, as the organization grows. I remember when I came here, one of the things that was said to me was that nurses don't have any respect. And I found that to be very true. But I also had to make the nurses understand that in order to get respect, you have to earn it. And you need to assert yourself as a nurse, you need to act like a nurse, you need to be a patient's advocate. When you say that there is something wrong with the patient, you need to say "this is what it is." You can't just call a physician and say, "there is something that's not right with the patient." And sometimes it's a gut feeling that you have, but you need to have very good critical thinking skills and information to back up the statements that you are making. And I think that over the last four years we have been working very diligently with the nursing staff to make them be proud of what they do, and be proud of the fact that they are nurses. And they do have knowledge, and they do understand what is going on with the patients to be able to use that knowledge to educate the patients and the families. And I think that's what is going to get us to become one of the Top Ten Rehabilitation providers in the country.

On Teamwork...

We are here to serve our customers, and we can't have our customers happy when they walk out of the doors, then we might as well close our doors. So we need to do something to make everybody very aware of what it is that the customer is looking for from us. When we introduced the FISH!® Philosophy, we saw a significant change in the morale, and the teamwork. Historically there has always been a division between nursing and therapy. What we saw after introducing FISH!® was that division became very blurred. When we met with the staff not long ago, I asked them, "When we did FISH!®, did you see any difference in the relationship between nursing and therapy?" And they all unanimously said "Yes". So it is very worthwhile re-energizing that program, because it is really not a typical program, but rather a set of principles that we all can use in our everyday life.

On Loyalty...

I believe that you create loyalty by providing for the staff the intangible things that they are looking for. Everybody goes to work to get paid, but it has been proven many times that money is not what's keeping people where they are. What really keeps them there are the intangibles, that feeling of accomplishment - that they are doing something to make a difference in patient's life. That they are working with people that they really want to work with. And it is that kind of an atmosphere that keeps people in the positions that they are in. And the other things that we talked about - proving areas to grow in, providing opportunities for growth, those are the things that will keep us staffed. Whenever we celebrate our 5, 10 and 15 year employees, I always got to go, to recognize somebody from the nursing staff. We recently had an LPN who has graduated from RN school and said that she was not going anywhere, this is where she belonged. Those are the kinds of relationships we would like to develop.