Cleveland, OH
‘I made it better:’ Kathleen Kerber ensures nurses can deliver best care: Top Nurses
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Kathleen Kerber didn’t at all times wish to be a nurse. She thought she could be an engineer, like her father, or share her love for math as a math instructor.
Then she volunteered on the former Elyria Memorial Hospital as a sweet striper, delivering newspapers and low to sufferers, and watched nurses at work.
“I assumed, ‘Oh, that is what I wish to do,’ ” recalled Kerber, 65, who lives in Elyria.
These early experiences have been her springboard right into a 44-year profession as a nurse, most of it spent as a registered nurse at MetroHealth System. Kerber, at the moment scientific high quality and proof based mostly follow specialist at MetroHealth, is the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award for cleveland.com’s High Nurses.
As a scientific nurse specialist for the medical intensive care and cardiac intensive care models, Kerber takes a hen’s-eye view of the entire hospital system to make sure nurses have what they should ship care.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Kerber labored alongside nurses caring for essentially the most unwell COVID-19 sufferers. She skilled nurses tips on how to use a bedside dialysis process that cleans sufferers’ blood.
MetroHealth environmental companies aide Janice Longcoy, who has labored carefully with Kerber, wasn’t stunned to listen to of the High Nurse accolade. Longcoy described Kerber as “the bomb.”
“If any nurses have issues, who do they name? Kathy Kerber,” Longcoy stated. “Who rescues them? Kathy Kerber. She’s good at every thing.”
Amongst Kerber’s largest achievements was implementing continuous renal alternative remedy, a particular bedside dialysis process used within the intensive care unit. Previously, MetroHealth contracted with a dialysis service to arrange the gear for sufferers, however the hospital needed nurses to have the ability to do it themselves.
The renal machines have been delivered simply because the COVID-19 pandemic put hospitals in lockdown. Kerber needed to work with the dialysis firm and hospital engineers, prepare nurses whereas coping with provide chain disruptions and determine how the brand new system could be famous on digital medical data.
MetroHealth quickly discovered that very unwell COVID-19 sufferers usually wanted the brand new dialysis gadgets.
“It was simply lucky that we had bought these machines prematurely and we have been up and able to go,” Kerber stated.
Nurses have been confronted with the problem of turning severely unwell COVID-19 sufferers on their stomachs, known as proning, to assist with oxygenation. The process took a excessive stage of coordination, as a result of sufferers have been sedated and connected to respiratory tubes, IV strains and catheters.
She developed a guidelines to make sure the process was finished safely.
“I used to be amazed on the resilience and the stamina of those youthful nurses,” she stated. “Seeing how they responded to the problem motivated me to attempt to assist them extra.”
She additionally discovered from youthful nurses in regards to the significance of work-life stability and assuaging stress. Now Kerber units apart time for studying historic novels, and has joined a ebook membership.
Registered nurse Kathleen Kerber, scientific high quality and evidence-based follow specialist at MetroHealth System, is working with scientific engineers to improve affected person displays to be much less disruptive and noisy. The upgraded displays will probably be put in in MetroHealth’s new Glick Middle set to open later this yr. Kerber is that this yr’s recipient of the High Nurses Lifetime Achievement Award. Credit score: Julie E. Washington
‘I don’t really feel able to retire’
Kerber, who joined MetroHealth in 1986, feels as if her efforts to help nurses throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and her work with pharmacists on drug security has made a distinction for MetroHealth nurses and sufferers.
“I’m proud that once I stroll round MetroHealth, I can truly have a look at issues and say, ‘Sure, I had part of this, and I truly made it higher’,” Kerber stated.
Regardless of her many years of nursing, Kerber has no agency plans for retirement. Yearly, she pushes it additional into the long run.
“I take pleasure in what I do, and I don’t really feel able to retire,” she stated. “I like MetroHealth.”
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