Terri Lynn Canaday, Ba, Bsn, Rn Email & Phone Number

In this position, I developed and organized the structure and put processes in place to improve the Palliative Care program Seasons Hospice and Palliative Care was initiating in skilled nursing centers in the Baltimore area. These processes included:o A scheduling system that included: A process to triage patients newly referred to the Palliative Care program. A system to track existing patients and prioritize next visits needed to be completed by the Palliative Care Nurse Practitioners, who served as the providers for the Palliative Care program. A process for two-way communication, with the respective skilled nursing center, as patient conditions change.I created initiatives to change the culture across the levels of care providers in the centers as well as with the regional leadership for the nursing centers. I also provided goals of care conversation education and training for the Palliative Care Nurse Practitioners.

Maryland

As the Clinical Community Educator, I provided education for physicians, nurses, caretakers, and the community concerning healthcare decisions in the advanced stages of life. My goal, in this role, was to empower health care providers in guiding and supporting their clients to make informed decisions that honor their wishes and help them to achieve peace with this journey we call life and to realize a fulfilling end-of-life experience.Throughout my tenure as the Clinical Community Educator, as an innovative educator, I continually created and grew this role. I covered the state of Maryland and worked intimately with the hospital systems, the physician practices, the continuous care communities, the skilled nursing centers, and the assisted living communities across the state to assess and determine the educational needs of the provider teams, nursing teams, patients and their families. I developed educational programs for these healthcare systems and scheduled series of in-services that I would present throughout the year. I created and continually evolved educational curricula on much needed topics. Through the years, my library of educational programs and in-services grew to meet the needs of the medical communities we were serving. These programs included:o Chronic progressive disease processes and trajectories and the most appropriate care as patients decline.o Disease-specific education designed for specialist groups (e.g., cardiology, oncology, pulmonology, nephrology, etc.).I developed an end-of-life curriculum which I presented to physician residency groups of four Baltimore area hospitals. I also designed end-of-life education which I presented to nurse residency programs throughout Maryland.I created educational presentations for submission, acceptance, and presentation at conferences sponsored by various healthcare organizations across Maryland.I created and presented in-services for which the participants could earn continuing education credits.

I provided care to critically ill patients, many of whom were on ventilators, critical medications requiring continuous monitoring and titration, continuous EEG monitoring, routine and stat lab draws requiring interventions such as electrolyte repletion and medication titration, etc. I also regularly cared for unstable post-operative patients who required more intensive care than is provided on the surgical floor. Union Hospital of Cecil County is a small community hospital that requires a very strong nursing staff as we did not have resident physicians. I also provided continual education and support to the family members of these critically ill patients. During my tenure as an ICU nurse, I lectured on a range of topics for the Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the Critical Care Consortium. I also served on the planning committee to logistically organize and determine the curricula for the educational events held by the consortium. These Critical Care Conferences were held semiannually, in various host hospitals, throughout the state. When the event was held at Union Hospital of Cecil County, I not only lectured at the event, but locally organized it and hosted it as well. Along with being an instructor for the Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the Critical Care Consortium, I served as the Union Hospital of Cecil County ICU Unit Base Council Education Chair. In this role, I assessed the educational needs of the ICU nursing team. I provided educational in-services to the team on various topics. I also supported my nurse colleagues in creating and delivering educational in-services. In this role, I also provided education to other hospital departments to help bridge the gap in understanding between departments to ultimately achieve smoother patient transfers and better continuity of care throughout a patient’s hospital experience from Emergency Department to discharge.

Baltimore, Maryland Area

As a nurse working for this innovative hospice company, I was a clinical member of the marketing team. I worked with the directors of business development to implement and grow inpatient hospice programs in MedStar hospitals in the greater Baltimore area. I was responsible for providing clinical educational in-services to the nursing and physician teams in these hospitals. I also worked with the Seasons Hospice business team to develop a smooth process for patients and their families to transition from intensive hospital care to inpatient hospice care. These processes also had to be consistent and easily implemented for hospital staff.In this position, I also served as the Nurse Case Manager caring for symptomatic hospice inpatients. As the hospice nurse caring for these patients, I was responsible for assessing them and then collaborating with the hospice physicians, and the ordering physicians in the hospitals, to ensure that we adequately palliated their pain, respiratory distress, anxiety, and any other symptom causing grief, distress, or discomfort. I was also responsible for coordinating care with the other members of the interdisciplinary hospice team while the patient was being treated as an inpatient, and then to coordinate and plan the patient’s discharge from this level of care. Depending on the individual patient, this discharge planning included assessing the patient’s support system and safety of the home environment, ordering and organizing the delivery of durable medical equipment and medications, and possibly having to aid the patient’s family with long term care placement and/or with arranging for paid caregivers.

As a NCM, I developed, implemented, and reviewed healthcare discharge plans for patients recovering from injuries and acute illness, as well as those living with chronic disease. I assessed the needs of each respective patient, and their support system, to get them the community resources they needed as well as to provide education to fill any gaps in understanding. My goal was always to empower the patient, or decision maker, to define attainable goals and then enjoy the satisfaction of reaching these goals.

Elkton, Maryland

Working as an Emergency Department RN in a small rural hospital afforded me much autonomy in emergent determination of critical patient care. Because Union Hospital of Cecil County (UHCC) is not a teaching hospital, nursing assumes many of the responsibilities typically performed by residents in larger facilities. I employed physician and pharmacy approved protocols and pathways to aid in triage of patients, initiating NIH stroke alerts, and in the initial ordering of labs, radiological tests, etc. Because, as the aforementioned suggests, UHCC is a National Institutes of Health recognized Stroke Center, I regularly assessed stroke patients employing the NIH Stroke Scale Assessment. I have also administered TPA to stroke patients and in some cases, worked with the University of Maryland Flight Team to transfer these patients to the University of Maryland Medical Center. I have assisted physicians in bedside procedures such as lumbar punctures, central line insertions, chest tube insertions, intubations, etc. I have been involved in numerous code situations in the ED due to cardiac arrest or respiratory failure, as well as being a part of a Rapid Response Team that responds to codes throughout the hospital.The UHCC ED also provides the community with an Urgent Care level of care. Working on this "side," I also triaged patients injuries and illnesses, ordered blood work and radiological tests as necessary. I aided the providers in procedures requiring conscious sedation. I cared for injuries by splinting, wrapping, taping, etc. In all cases, I provided relevant patient education appropriate to the respective individuals ability to take in information and instruction.

Bachelor Of Science (Bs), Registered Nursing/Registered Nurse, 4.0

Activities and Societies: Omicron Gamma

Associate Of Science (As), Registered Nursing/Registered Nurse, 3.8

Activities and Societies: Phi Theta Kappa

Bachelor Of Arts (Ba), Psychology (Ba) And English (Ba), 3.8

Activities and Societies: Phi Beta Kappa Phi Eta Sigma Daily Tar Heel reporter and news writer UNC Aerobics instructor Intramural sports.