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Kathy Webster of Hudson Valley Hospital Center Receives NY Times 'Nurse of Distinction' Award
Kathy Webster, RN, MSN, Vice President of Patient Services at Hudson Valley Hospital Center (HVHC), received a New York Times 2007 "Nurse of Distinction" award December 12th at the newspaper's offices in New York, John Federspiel, president of the Hospital, announced today. The award honors nurses and nurse educators in the New York region for their extraordinary achievements in the nursing profession and patient care. Ms. Webster was one of only four nurses selected out of 200 applicants, and the only nurse to be honored in Westchester and Putnam counties.
Patients have more contact with nurses than any other hospital professional, so excellent and compassionate nursing care is essential to the Hospital's overall quality of service. In her 30 years of nursing at the Hospital, Ms. Webster has inspired the nursing staff to provide exceptional care, which has led to both high patient satisfaction scores and an excellent retention rate for nurses.
In April, under Ms. Webster's leadership, the nursing department received the prestigious MagnetTM Award for Nursing Excellence, the highest nursing honor in the nation, from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, becoming the first and only hospital in the region to win such recognition. Only five percent of hospitals nation-wide have received Magnet designation, and just 15 hospitals in New York State.
"Kathy has been a champion for patients and the nursing staff," Mr. Federspiel explained. "Kathy discusses patient needs by convening biweekly Patient Satisfaction Committee meetings, which is a reason why we have one of the highest patient satisfaction scores in the region." She also has empowered nurses by including nurse representatives as members of Medical Board committees, where they participate in problem-solving and developing best practices with their medical colleagues. "Kathy deserves much of the credit for our ability to recruit and retain nurses, which far exceeds the rest of the industry," Mr. Federspiel noted. "This is due to Kathy's diligence in opening a line of communication to the top and pursuing the resources her staff needs."
Coordinating the No-Wait ER Ms. Webster oversees Hudson
Valley Hospital Center's revolutionary no-wait emergency room, where patients
are seen by a registered nurse within moments of arrival. She played an integral
role in re-engineering the work flow in the Emergency Department, which now uses
portable computers at the bedside to process patient information. HVHC's
Emergency Department, with 33,000 visits in 2007, is the second busiest ER in
the county and the first and only no-wait ER in the area.
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