As a veteran nurse with three decades of service at Cedars-Sinai, Mary is an exceptional leader and clinical nurse. She simply does not settle for anything less than excellence and she never lets anything slide. Instead, she takes action to improve patient care from top to bottom.
When it became necessary to convert single patient rooms to doubles, Mary stepped into a leadership role to make it happen, even though the transition was unprecedented and difficult. By working with meticulous attention to detail, she made sure that patient care would not be compromised by the change: She created guidelines for the way the rooms would be physically structured, as well as plans for equipment, for staffing and for admission. She made the transition to double rooms both seamless and safe—a real feat—and she was able to do this because of her deep understanding of both the patient population and of the frontline nurses’ practice.
She has spearheaded many other initiatives focused on improving patient safety, like the chair buddy program that prevents falls and ensures that patients can get up and move safely. She is working on a GTFO (get the Foley out) program, designed to limit the amount of time patients rely on a foley catheter, to decrease the risk of a urinary tract infection. Mary’s superpower is patient care: Not only the care she herself provides, but also her ability to build, train and support teams that provide that care to the highest standard.