Belton receives 2022 DAISY Nurse Leader Award

The DAISY Nurse Leader Award annually recognizes the incredible work that nurse leaders do every day. At Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital nurse leaders include Nurse Directors, Nursing Supervisors, Nurse Educators and Program Managers in the Department of Nursing. Recently, 6 North and 7 North Professional Development Manager Susan Belton, MSN, RN, CNL, received BWFH’s 2022 DAISY Nurse Leader Award.

Belton was nominated by her 7 North colleagues.

In a nomination letter written on behalf of the unit, Rob Stetson, BSN, RN, Amanda Sykes, BSN, RN, and Clinical Leader Tracy Lane, MSN, RN-BC, wrote:

We would like to nominate Susan Belton for this year’s BWFH DAISY Nurse Leader Award. Susan is a dedicated team member of the 7 North staff. She is both accessible and visible. Susan can be frequently found rounding on the unit multiple times a day, checking in with staff members, knowing active issues with patients and families on the unit or answering a call bell. She attends our daily team huddle in the morning and shares pertinent educational and organizational updates at the huddle. Susan has organized guest speakers to be able to talk with staff on topics that may be new or need educational support to put into practice. For example, when a staff nurse identified a knowledge deficit in caring for patients with tracheostomies, Susan was quick to help identify with the staff members what practice gaps were there and how we could address them. She supported the creation of a staff survey to hear from staff what their educational priorities were. Once topics were identified, she organized a professional film crew to do an educational video with a QR code that could be easily accessed by staff now and in the future. Since this was such a successful strategy and well received by the staff, she has created more QR codes for topics such as the lockbox on IV narcotics or CHG bathing wipes for CLABSI prevention. Susan is a valued member of our 7 North leadership team, supporting both the nurse directors and clinical leaders. With Susan’s background both as a clinician and leader, she is a treasured resource to solve issues while promoting professional growth and mentorship. Susan engages in active listening. She has shared strategies of both success and failures that she has used at previous institutions to tackle problems. She assists in identifying and supporting staff that may be ready to take the leap to new roles such as precepting a new staff member, learning the role of a charge nurse or facilitating a clinical group. She utilized her connection with Curry College to start a “designated education unit” for nursing student clinical placement and recruited four staff nurses on both 6 North and 7 North to teach this fall. While this serves is a crucial step in the nursing students’ development, it also gives a new way to try to recruit and attract future nurses to begin their career here at BWFH. Almost daily, Susan participates in coordinated rounds on the unit to improve our nurse sensitive indicators including mobility, indwelling urinary catheters, central lines and leadership rounds. She provides real-time teaching with staff and patients to improve practice. Her calm manner allows staff to open up to her and share concerns. She is humble, easily approachable and if there is something she does not know, she is able to verbalize that is not her area of strength, but she will find someone who does. Susan shows her passion for nursing by wanting to foster the development of staff so they may feel confident in delivering high-quality patient- and family-focused care. She is often found in a room with patients and nurses to walk through a new task the nurse may have never performed such as hanging blood, draining a pleurx catheter or setting up a chest tube for example. Simply put, Susan is a nurses’ nurse. During the winter COVID-19 surge in December, Susan had come in on the holiday to help answer the phone and call lights. When jokingly asked “What are you doing here?” she simply replied in her scrubs, “I knew it had been busy and I wanted to try and help.” She spent the morning answering the phone and assisting with call lights which was an enormous help. Since then, we have eagerly awaited the DAISY Nurse Leader nominations to highlight Susan. We are grateful for Susan being a member of our 7 North team and hope she is recognized for her contributions to improving nursing care here at BWFH. As one of our recent NLN graduates shared, “I instantly feel safe when I know Susan is on the unit.”

For Belton, being named the recipient of BWFH’s 2022 DAISY Nurse Leader Award is humbling. “It’s hard to put into words just what this recognition means to me both personally and professionally,” she says. “I am truly honored that my colleagues nominated me for the DAISY Nurse Leader Award and I am grateful that the staff feel supported by me.”

To learn more about the DAISY Nurse Leader Award, click here.

Published 11/7/22