National Nurses Week: Honoring our teammates
It’s National Nurses Week! WellSky is proud to have an outstanding group of nurses among our teammates. Every day, these clinicians are working with our clients across the continuum to provide training and education, help with technical support, or prepare for audits or compliance checks.
For many of these teammates, their interest in nursing began with a personal healthcare experience.
“When I was 12 years old, my mom fell and fractured her ankle. In the process of taking care of her, I realized that I wanted to do this type of work as a job,” said Nicole Chu, WellSky senior compliance manager.
As they began their careers caring for patients, many WellSky RNs said they appreciated being able to give back to their communities in a meaningful way.
“I love being able to help others and being able to be there for those who may not have loved ones with them during a crisis,” said Brenda Droste, a WellSky clinical consultant.
Now these hardworking men and women are bringing their wealth of experience to their roles in helping WellSky clients thrive.
“For me, I loved knowing that I could share my nursing expertise and experience in hospice and palliative care with our clients,” said Angela Kindred, a technical support manager at WellSky. “We were able to answer their industry and regulation related questions to ensure that they knew how to best utilize the system to meet those requirements. It was great knowing that we were helping them learn how to make things easier.”
For Shawn Arnett, an implementation consultant, his experience using WellSky solutions as a client brought him to the company as a teammate.
“I was a hospice nurse for 19 years, and over that time had many responsibilities, ranging from direct patient care to management and leadership. The hospice agency I worked with changed to WellSky Hospice & Palliative EMR and I was responsible for implementation. Through that process I realized I enjoyed learning the technology and teaching other users.”
Because of their clinical backgrounds, these teammates understand the particular challenges our clients face.
“Nursing shortages have always been a challenge, but the pandemic has exacerbated this problem,” said Jaime Vazquez, associate solutions manager at WellSky. “Nurses are working longer and longer hours with limited resources. WellSky helps to address these challenges by providing a software solution that increases the efficiency of the nursing process. Whether it be critical patient safety alerts or the integration of workflow to improve documentation time, WellSky improves the quality of patient care.”
And although their jobs now are focused on support and consulting, many WellSky RNs are still finding ways to serve patients directly.
“I love my teammates and helping our clients, but I also still love hands-on nursing care,” said Eileen Villa Fontana, lead clinical solutions support specialist at WellSky. “I previously served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural southwestern Guatemala and as a Returned Peace Corps Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Currently I volunteer for my county’s Medical Reserve Corps, where I administer COVID vaccines and assist with refugee intake at Joint Base McGuire-Dix Airforce Base. I also volunteer at ski races and sailing regattas as the nurse on medical assistance chase boats. This Nurses Week I celebrate all the wonderful nurses who have lifted me up!”
At WellSky, we want to celebrate too! Thank you to our teammates for all that you do to ensure our clients’ success. We appreciate you!