Burlington Nurse Creates Assessment Tool To Help Patients, Colleagues

BURLINGTON, MA — In honor of National Nurses Week, which was last week, Patch is highlighting nursing professionals who continue to lead the way in providing exceptional healthcare to their local communities.

Beverly native Carly Mears, a nurse at Burlington's Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, recently helped to create a standardized assessment tool to allow for a consistent method of observing and documenting patients who require 24-hour observation.

The tool is designed to ensure the interventions necessary to keep patients safe are consistently being evaluated to best determine when continual observation is no longer necessary.

Mears was given the task of creating the tool because she is the chair of the Tertiary Nurse Leader Council at the hospital, and she worked with the Nursing Assistant Council on the project.

Introduced last spring, the assessment tool has been successful in directing nursing resources where they are needed most, according to Lahey Hospital. This has been especially important at a time when workforce challenges have affected nearly all healthcare organizations.

Mears, who worked as a nursing assistant at Beverly Hospital before coming to Lahey eight years ago, said the tool has been particularly beneficial in the units where there are a higher number of patients requiring one-to-one monitoring, such as the neurological care and orthopedic units.

"The more people you can have out on the nursing floor, obviously the better it is for patients," Mears said. "Any tool like this that is going to best utilize the nursing resources we have is only going to improve the way we operate and care for patients."

Carla Pereira Jones, interim associate chief nursing officer for inpatient services at Lahey, said the assessment tool is an example of Mears looking out for patients and nurses alike.

"(Mears is) especially concerned about the resiliency of our new nurses and is always thinking of ways to assist them," Jones said. "Her work on creating this assessment tool is just one example of her resolve in not only serving our patients, but also recognizing the needs of her fellow nurses."

Lesley Fantasia, interim chief nursing officer at Lahey, said Mears is just one of many nurses at the hospital who deserve to be celebrated.

"We are grateful for Carly's contributions to our nursing team and her efforts to continually improve on the care we provide our patients," Fantasia said. "We celebrate her along with all our nursing professionals during National Nurses Week for their commitment to our patient-centered approach to care and for the skill and passion they bring to their roles every day."