Valley Children's Announces 2021 Nursing Excellence Awards

Kim is an inspiration for excellence in nursing education, leading the organization in simulation training. Throughout Kim’s 16 years at Valley Children’s Hospital, she has shown that growth and development of an individual’s nursing practice can and does affect the whole in so many ways. Kim started in the ED, grew into Education for the ICU, and is now Manager of the Simulation Program. Within Pediatric Emergent and Critical Care, Kim brings expertise and passion to simulation and is able to translate those experiences into exceptional curriculum to grow our nursing teams.  

Lauren is an exceptional pediatric nurse practitioner in our Neuroscience Center. She devotes countless hours of work caring for complex patients with conditions including epilepsy, epilepsy syndromes and other neurodegenerative disorders. Lauren’s latest achievement has been her instrumental role in developing the epilepsy surgery program and monitoring unit. Along with Dr. Cesar Santos, she evaluated the need for services in our demographic area and reviewed other epilepsy programs to determine how we could best provide services to our pediatric population needing specialized epilepsy care. After much planning and building, our comprehensive epilepsy surgery program was distinguished as a level 4 epilepsy center. This center is one of only five Level 4 centers in California. 

Jennifferre is a nurse in the nationally ranked, level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Valley Children's Hospital. During Jennifferre's nursing career, she has developed an exceptional ability to create innovative solutions to improve care for patients at the bedside. Her entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to patient care led Jennifferre to co-found Lumify Care, a nurse-led startup aimed at improving the patient hospital experience by providing innovative tools and resources to support the frontline of healthcare. Jennifferre's commitment to the nursing profession is expansive; she is a participant in the American Nurses Association's Mentorship Program, a member of the Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs and Leaders (SONSIEL) and participates in departmental shared governance committees. Jennifferre’s visionary designs and projects affect interdepartmental change every day and improve efficiency and quality of care throughout the hospital.

Christine Netzley-Morales is the Director of Perioperative Services. Over the course of the last year, Christine has led the team through the Epic build and go-live, and has spent countless hours pulling together the team of experts needed for successful outcomes within the entire multidisciplinary team. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Christine was able to provide calm to an anxious team by taking active measures to ensure safety through solutions including the intubation tent, implementation of CAPR and PAPR training, ensuring PPE was readily accessible, and the introduction of HEPA filters in the OR suites to maintain adequate air exchanges. Christine is accountable for many areas of oversight and maintains operational accountabilities in an exceptional manner as she continues to support the entire perioperative multidisciplinary team.  

Explorer cares for pre-operative and post-operative patients. Patients and families often come to Explorer during stressful times and they are cared for by staff with smiles, kindness and incredible care. Explorer continually strives to become more efficient in order to provide the best care to our patients. The Explorer team set a goal to decrease our PACU hold times from 62% in September 2019 to an all-time low of 15% in December 2020. Explorer team members put in tremendous work to make this improvement. This not only allowed patients to be resting comfortably in their rooms faster, but it also allowed for a more efficient flow in the Perioperative department.

Roberta’s commitment to excellence, dedication to customer service and unwavering spirit of teamwork make her an indispensable member of our Valley Children’s team. Roberta has a broad knowledge base of the inner workings of the Perioperative Department and she serves as an excellent resource for leadership, nursing staff and support staff. Prior to Epic go-live, Roberta was a leading resource for all Perioperative departments related to our legacy systems. As a subject matter expert, Roberta worked diligently to identify gaps in our medical record platforms during the Epic build. She continues to collaborate with our nursing educators, ITS staff and clinic teams to streamline Epic workflows for nurses and to ensure that reports are accurate and timely. Roberta wears many hats in support of Valley Children’s nurses and staff with a “can-do” attitude.