National Nurses Week is celebrated each year from May 6, formally recognized as National Nurses Day, through May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.
Florence Nightingale’s elevation of nursing from menial labor to being an honored profession began with her tireless work tending to wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. The many medical horrors of war, coupled with the deplorable medical conditions of the times, were truly a crisis in need of innovative change and leadership. Nightingale set about implementing her vision for health and healing by making improvements in cleanliness, disease management, infection control, and heightening awareness in the concept of patient care. In 1860, Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London.
This week, we celebrate the PrairieCare Nurse Professionals who choose to devote their professional lives to transforming psychiatric care and providing each of our patien ts the very best psychiatric and mental health care possible. Our Nurses recognize that patients seeking this care often feel vulnerable and exposed. In addition, we can never lose sight of the fact there are few things in life more difficult for a parent than having to seek care for a child in crisis. Establishing therapeutic relationships with patients and their families is the foundation of PrairieCare’s Professional Nursing Practice. Therapeutic relationships form the platform from which our Nurses communicate, provide hope, teach, listen, advocate, make a difference and begin to establish order to the oftentimes chaotic lives of our patients and their families. PrairieCare employs 36 nurses, many with different specialties but all of whom work together to give each patient the “psychiatric care they truly need”.
- Advanced Practice Nurses work in the clinics in Edina and Woodbury as providers who are trained to provide a full range of psychiatric services including diagnostic assessments, medication management, and psychotherapy.
- Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses are valued members of the treatment team, working in PHP in Edina and Maple Grove as well as the Maple Grove Inpatient unit. They implement and monitor individualized care plans, pass medication, assess therapeutic effects and side effects of medication, and manage behavior.
- Clinic Nurses working in Woodbury and Edina triage phone calls and provide patient support and medication refills.
- Utilization Review Nurses work with insurance companies, patients and their families to minimize barriers to patients receiving the care that is needed.
As PrairieCare’s Chief Nursing Officer, a quote comes to mind which has provided me guidance throughout my career, and it has always held true…“When you’re a nurse, you know that every day you will touch a life or a life will touch yours.” Anonymous