With a Blueprint for Emergency Care
Clinical Director Guides Design
of New Emergency and Level I Trauma Center
Hospital employees typically don’t wear hard hats at work. But Jeff Tschetter, RN, is a notable exception.
In fact, Jeff has been wearing many hats. While clinical director of John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital’s emergency department, he has supervised the design of the hospital’s Emergency and Level I Trauma Center, which is part of an ongoing renovation project for the award-winning hospital.
But ever-unassuming, Jeff remains undaunted. Diverse responsibilities are all just "part of the job," he says.
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Jeff Tschetter, RN, clinical director of the North Mountain hospital emergency center. | |
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Sure, he's had his share of long days. And the furrows of concern on his brow, shaped by years of genuine care for patients, may have deepened.
Yet, despite these challenges, Jeff has found new kinds of satisfaction—personally and professionally.
"I'm still caring for patients, but through my staff," he explains. "Reading surveys, interacting with staff and giving them the resources to care for patients are just as rewarding."
An Unexpected Nursing Career
In a way, Jeff’s career has come full circle—from construction worker, to nurse, to nurse who has helped oversee construction.
His current career stemmed from a work-related mishap he suffered in 1981, when he burned his hand badly at a road-construction project in a small Colorado town. As he recovered, he took an EMT course. Before he completed his first class, he was hired by the hospital that sponsored his training.
During the first EMT run of his career—stabilizing an asthmatic patient who had "coded," then accompanying her in a helicopter to Denver—Jeff knew he had found his calling. He moved to Phoenix, joined John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital in 1985 and became a registered nurse five years later.
Fast forward to 2004. After nearly a decade of service as charge nurse, Jeff was chosen to succeed the retiring clinical director, Nancy Queen, RN. As he learned how to manage day-to-day operations of the emergency unit, the hospital received go-ahead to build its new emergency and trauma facility.
Jeff jumped at the chance to lead the new facility's design team—one dozen nurses who collaborated with architecture firm Orcutt Winslow Partnership. They met every other week for a year, brainstorming ways to translate existing emergency treatment processes into a blueprint for success.
Built for Comfort and Quality
While the design of the new Emergency and Level I Trauma Center offers a comforting environment for patients and their families, it also was engineered to help emergency specialists provide top-quality care.
"We included all of the end-users—bedside nurses and physicians, unit secretaries, technicians, trauma surgeons and anesthesiologists, paramedics and helicopter pilots, even the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI—in the design and development process," Jeff explains. "We allowed everyone to build something they will use day in, day out."
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Donna Monge, RN, and Jeff review blueprints during the construction of the Emergency and Level I Trauma Center at John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital. |
Research informed the design. For example, studies have shown that nurses make more errors when distracted—by any type of noise or interruption—as they dispense medications. To decrease noise for nurses and patients, the new facility has special sound-absorbing ceiling tiles, flooring and wall insulation.
Each emergency room is divided into zones—one for the patient and visitors, the other for medical staff—so that staff won't disturb visitors during bedside visits. Rooms are designed identically, as well. Equipment and supplies are laid out consistently from one to the next, saving time and training.
Nurses can look in on patients more easily and more often. The nurses' station affords views of most emergency beds.
No Time to Rest
When the doors of the 36,000-square-foot facility open on October 10, a new era will begin for John C. Lincoln's emergency and trauma center team. Jeff’s planning role won't end there, however. He'll shift his energy to ensuring a smooth transition to the new facility, a process that could take up to 12 months.
"Going into a new environment, a new system, we will be evaluating the process constantly and adapting it as needed, until we get into the normal, day-to-day flow that everyone has been used to for the past 20-plus years," he observes.
Jeff also will be looking forward to having more time to care for patients personally. He never loses sight of how, as an emergency professional, he can impact a patient’s life.
"It's a good feeling to go home every day knowing that you've done everything you can, that you're improving the wellbeing of others," he says. "I love my job."