Each year, Suburban’s PFAC presents the Patient- and Family-Centered Care Leadership Award to those within the hospital who best exemplify the tenets of patient- and family-centered care. In 2020, the PFAC chose two recipients: Margaret Fitzwilliam, Suburban’s director of capital renovation, planning and space management, and Kris Hakanson, director of the Office of Patient and Family Experience. Both Margaret and Kris demonstrated sustained and enthusiastic commitment to patient- and family-centered care.
This year, the award was presented to three recipients: the leadership of the COVID Vaccine Clinic, the leaders of the COVID Garage Testing Program, and Steve Bokat, who skillfully served as the PFA co-chair of the PFAC for the past five years.
The COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic provided 30,000 vaccines to the Suburban community to help respond to the greatest public health crisis this country has faced in modern times. The clinic opened on Dec. 17, 2020, to vaccinate employees, and expanded to offer vaccinations to the public from Jan. 28–June 11, 2021. The clinic was supported by 150 staff members.
Vaccine recipients wrote cards and emails and expressed thousands of verbal “thanks” as they exited the clinic. Some were in tears with gratitude. From the time patients entered the hospital’s garage and went through the main entrance in the beautiful new North Lobby, they were greeted by welcoming staff members, escorted through registration and into designated lines that moved quickly into the clinic, where staff expressed positive and comforting words to ease patients’ stress. The combination of staff kindness and well-designed logistics resulted in patients frequently expressing how positive their experience had been.
For setting a model of how to provide patient- and family-centered care in the process of delivering lifesaving vaccinations to thousands of patients, the PFAC designated these vaccine clinic leaders for the 2021 Award:
- Jen Raynor, director of pharmacy
- Cindy Notobartolo, administrative director ED/trauma, safety, security and employee health services
- Sarah Rasmussen, director of nursing informatics
- Hanada Rados, occupational health specialist
- Michelle Christ, physician alignment manager
The award noted the success of the clinic was due in large part to the wonderful work of the employees who staffed it.
The PFAC also chose the COVID Garage Testing Program for this award because it ensured members of the community could be tested for COVID in a safe manner, knowing their test results would be reliable. This was important especially in the early days of COVID, when testing was difficult to obtain and not all labs were certified. Suburban’s Garage Testing Program began in March 2020 and averaged 250–300 patients per week, administering more than 11,000 COVID tests through June 2021.
Organizing logistics for garage testing required significant planning and relocation. The resulting exemplary service was a mark of phenomenal leadership. Steps were taken to arrange for adequate space and clear signage to direct cars safely to the testing area while ensuring the garage could provide parking for other patients and staff members. This required a team effort to make sure staff and patients were protected from COVID exposure and transmission. Moreover, the tests themselves were not easy to administer.
For setting a model for the delivery of lifesaving tests in a safe and secure manner, the PFAC designated these garage testing leaders for the 2021 PFCC Leadership Award:
- Karin Nevius, director of nursing professional practice and quality
- Quinn Collins, director, nursing systems and operations
- Monique Sanfuentes, administrative director, community affairs and population health
The award noted the success of the testing program was due in large measure to the employees who staffed it.
Steve Bokat started as a Suburban volunteer in 2008, and joined as a founding member of the PFAC in 2010. In 2016, Steve succeeded the PFAC’s first PFA co-chair, Toby Levin. Although Steve’s second two-year term as PFAC co-chair ended in 2020, he volunteered to continue as the co-chair for another year, given the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
During that extra year of service, Steve organized and led a team of PFAs and Suburban employees that staffed a COVID Vaccine Call Center. (See “PFAs Staff Suburban Vaccine Call Center” to learn more.) The call center fielded almost 2,000 phone calls from community members anxious to learn when, where and how they could get vaccinated against the deadly virus. Other highlights of Steve’s final year as PFAC co-chair included quickly converting PFAC meetings to Zoom, engaging PFAs on key topics — which included important briefings by senior leaders about COVID-19 and its impact on the hospital and patients — and overseeing program reports and discussions about how to promote PFCC when care partners were not permitted in the hospital. PFA and staff attendance at our monthly meetings increased and helped PFAs feel connected to the hospital and its staff members.
Steve played an important role in helping Suburban achieve MAGNET Status in May 2019. The American Nurses Credentialing Center, in awarding that coveted credential in May 2019, cited the close working relationship among the nursing staff, PFAC and patient and family advisor programs as an “exemplar” for “the breadth and depth of partnerships between nurses and patients/families,” and that it was “standard operating procedure for PFAs to participate in hospital committees, councils, initiatives and meetings.”
The PFAC achieved many other goals during Steve’s leadership, including the opening of the Patient and Family Resource Center, creation of the dashboard of PFAC activities and other highlights mentioned in this report.
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