Nursing Staff Testimonials

Improving Morale and Retention of a Hospital's Nursing Staff has been Cited as a Critical Part of Improving Patient Safety.

Read What Nurses Say About the Benefits of LifeWings Training.

New! (2/04/2010) Read what nurses from Community Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Fresno, California said about the LifeWings training (from a third-party-administered formal follow-up interview December 2010.)

On LifeWings communication, tools, and debriefing training:

“You feel more comfortable because it actually gives you the forum to do it. You do stop and you are actually asked if anybody needs to speak up, they need to speak up now.”
"It helped educate us that we not only have a right, but we have an obligation to speak up.”
"I feel like I’m giving a more detailed report from some of the things that LifeWings has taught us to make us more aware of the information we need to be passing on to make it a better, make it a safer experience for the patient.”
“[We] give a more thorough report. So it does work.”
“I just feel like with the checklist and verifying everything over and over that the patients are safer; that there are going to be fewer mistakes.”
“Some of the quieter nurses that have not been here as long would have felt funny questioning a doctor or another nurse for not following the correct procedure and just doing their own thing. Now they have the confidence to do that because of this.”
I’ve given better reports. I feel like I’m giving a more detailed report from some of the things that LifeWings has taught us to make us more aware of the information we need to be passing on to make it a better, make it a safer experience for the patient."
I think that it’s been really good. I’ve seen in the OR where it’s really slowing the doctors down. The nurses will say, “Stop. We’re going to do our time out now.” Where a lot of times it’s such a rush we’ve got to rush to get to the next patient. Sometimes I think that makes the doctor stop in their place. It’s like, “No.” The nurses are very adamant about saying we need to do our time out. So it makes them stop and think. We have to make sure anesthesia is fine, make sure the physicians and scrub techs are ready to go. I think that’s great. It’s a good thing that was implemented. (Surgical Technician)
(Since the LifeWings training) "There have been fewer mistakes. I think it’s brought a lot of the nurses and techs closer to the physicians as far as communicating."
Well, I definitely get a better a more detailed report because there are all these things that we add now that we’ve added to our report that we’ve gotten from LifeWings. I think it’s been easier for us to take care of our patients and to have better outcomes."
“It’s 105% better. We all communicate now because of LifeWings. We stop each other. We double check now and we’re safe.”

A nurse at a LifeWings client hospital describes how a red flag procedure learned from their LifeWings training helped avert a disaster:

"We just had an incident and it's not like I didn't say delta, but I didn't at that time. We had a fire--not a fire, but like a burn in the OR--and we found out that it was a defect on the port that we used for a laparoscopic case and nobody smelled anything except me. It wasn't working when the surgeon was using it so he kept saying, 'It's not working, it's not working.' So I switched over the port. When we do laparoscopic stuff we have to hook it up to a machine and there's an adapter and sometimes they get switched between the two ports, so I switched it to a different port and all of a sudden we saw static on the monitors but it wasn't working. So he was saying, 'It's not working, it's not working' and all of a sudden I smelled something burning and he didn't smell anything. So I said, 'No, we have to make sure. Let me turn on the light and we have to check everything.' And sure enough, we turned on the light and we looked down at the patient and there was a burn on the patient. So it was something that--everyone listened, everyone stood at attention when I said that we have to stop and make sure that everything's good. That, in itself, is a great feeling. I mean, it's bad that the patient got burned, but as close as it was to the gasses, the oxygen and all, it could have been worse. I didn't sleep the whole night after that because I've never had that happen to me, but in a way it averted a more disastrous outcome. It just doesn't bear thinking about what could have happened. It was a very scary situation. And as I said, everybody stood at attention whereas before everybody would have just continued talking, so it's a really good thing for the whole system because everybody can speak up and everybody is listened to. In the long run, the tube was down his throat and it was just a lot of horrible situations that could--I mean it didn't happen, thank God. [It really didn't happen because you called the red flag?] Right, and everybody paid attention. The whole part of this is to try to call attention on people who aren't interested in listening, so everybody did their part. And I hope it never happens again."

"Because of our pre-procedure briefing our OR staff feel like they are a bigger part of the team - and are getting more information about the case from each other and the physicians. The implementation is going very well."
Jenny Kadis, MSN, RN, CPAN
Program Director, Crew Resource Management
Memorial Healthcare System

"Things are going great here. The LifeWings program changed the culture in a thinking mode of if you find it fix it. We have staff working to develop tools almost weekly for any issue we define as a problem. As for measurable outcomes, we do a procedure brief 100% of the time, we have caught allergies etc. in the time out process we have prior to procedure. We have tools that identify problems before they occur."
Jennifer S. Cord RN MSN
Director Women's Services
Provena United Samaritans Medical Center

"The program is well thought out in respect to healthcare. LifeWings presents the training in a manner that shares the expertise of the aviation industry but is respectful of the clinician. This is a unique talent that engages the audience and moves people to action. In the four hour session, even when a physician was paged they returned immediately. I don't know if you realize how this signals the value of what they felt they were getting from the training, but it is huge! LifeWings far exceeded our expectations. We have been able to get 100% buy in from our physicians and staff. I couldn't sing your praises any more. This is an excellent program."
Joan Cappelletti

Woman's & Children's Service Line Administrator

Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center

“Very insightful! Great correlation between air traffic safety and healthcare safety. Real-life situations gave the focus and points more impact.”

Deborah Gregory, BSN, MSN
Director, Cardiac Services
Centennial Medical Center

“This is an awesome course that makes me realize how simple this process is, in order to make patients safer. Why haven’t we been taught this before?”

Beverly Ligon, RN
Skyline Medical Center

“It is well worth your valuable time!”
Kaye Orange, RN
OR Nurse Manager

“Take it! It can, and will, save lives!”
Cherie Allen, RN, CPSN

“Very valuable techniques and ways to see potential problems. Very dynamic and brings audience in to the discussion to help emphasize key points.”

Tina Summerlin, RN
Skyline Medical Center

“Extremely well done…very useful! Good patient safety initiative tool.”
Lynn Porter, RN

“All healthcare professionals could use this course.”
Anne Hickey, RN
Coney Island Hospital

“This is an excellent course to break down barriers and build the team concept, where anyone could prevent an adverse event.” Loretta Darby, RN
Coney Island Hospital

“Extremely stimulating and excellent written materials.”
Vanessa Amato, ACSW
Coney Island Hospital

>Contact Us Now To Start Improving Patient Safety In Your Organization