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Community Service
Diana Morneault, RN, BSN, OCN
Breast Care Coordinator, Sunrise Hospital
and Medical Center, Las Vegas
 Diana Morneault’s mom was an emergency department nurses aide for many years and Morneault frequently observed “the incredible work nurses performed.” Originally pursuing a pre-pharmacy degree in college, she then realized “nursing is where I belonged. I wanted to be with the patient.”
Morneault believes it is through community awareness and education that the war on cancer will be won. Two years ago, she took a leap of faith and invented her job as breast care coordinator at Sunrise. “I am not afraid to take on huge challenges,” she said. It is the first hospital-based program in the community to educate and support women with breast cancer and is free. Sunrise supports her work even though the hospital generates no revenue from it.
Morneault developed the entire program, including providing resources and a breast care hotline, monitoring abnormal mammograms, suggesting coping mechanisms for newly diagnosed women, and visiting mastectomy patients.
As a volunteer for the American Cancer Society, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and the local chapter of the Oncology Nursing Society, Morneault has given hundreds of presentations on breast health. She has also mentored and trained some 200 nurses in a chemotherapy and biotherapy provider course. She is a 20-year veteran of oncology nursing.
“While it’s very high tech, it is also very high touch,” she said. “And it is the connectedness to the patients that I enjoy most.”
Innovation/Creativity
Beth Martin, BSN, MBA
Operations Director, Continuum of Care,
Kaiser Permanente, Aurora, Colo.
 Beth Martin has worked in many areas of nursing — clinical, academic, public health, industrial, and administrative. “I like the balance of science and humanity that the profession offers,” she said.
Nominated by a physician, nurse, and physical therapist, she in turn has high praise for her colleagues. “They always approach things with tremendous excitement, willingness to stretch themselves, a positive attitude toward risk-taking, and true teamwork,” she said.
Carol Barnes, one of Martin’s employees and nominators, wrote, “In a recent company seminar highlighting creative ideas, most departments presented one or two fabulous projects. There were 18 [from Martin’s] department.” In addition, Barnes said, “Beth is highly skilled at partnering with others, so her ingenious ideas actually get implemented.”
Martin sponsored a regionwide model to improve wound care in outpatient clinics. She created programs in which various health care professionals aided seniors in their homes or assisted living centers and integrated nurse practitioners into a previously all-physician nursing home rounding model. She has been innovative in helping staff pursue career development and increased job satisfaction. She also updated her department’s record-keeping system and persuaded Kaiser Permanente to commit to three research studies on palliative care.
Ingrid Venohr, another employee/nominator, said, “Beth is always looking for new ways of viewing situations, reframing problems as opportunities for creating a new and better future.”
Leadership
Susan Grant, RN, MS, CNAA, BC
Chief Nursing Officer, University of
Washington Medical Center, Seattle
 “I love that in nursing, there are endless opportunities to make a real difference at pivotal points in people’s lives,” Susan Grant said. The daughter of a nurse (“It’s in my blood”), she worked in a nursing home for one summer in college and decided that nursing was “a part of who I was all along.” Having served as a staff nurse, case manager, unit manager, nursing supervisor, and executive director during the last 21 years, Grant believes that nursing administration allows her to “effect change and improve the health care experience for patients, their families, nurses, and every member of the interdisciplinary team.”
Her particular forte has been encouraging patients to partner with medical staff in the decision-making affecting their care. Last year, Grant helped inaugurate the Patient Care Services Quality Model and the Patient/Family Advisory Program at UWMC. She also established Synergy, a quarterly publication to highlight the cooperation of patient care services. |
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