Highlighting Professional Practice
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- Escape Room Learning Activity
- Celebrating Certified Nurses Day
- Strengthening Behavioral Health Resources
- Quality Education at the Northwest and Montlake Campuses
- Northwest Campus Stroke Recertification Successful
- Authentic Nursing Leadership Series
Escape Room Learning Activity
Bringing the UWMC Professional Practice Model to Life for Ambulatory Care Nurses
The RN Escape Room Challenge was developed to review the UWMC’s nursing professional practice model (PPM), specific elements of ambulatory care nursing practice, and select Magnet standards. Using the PPM model domains, five stations were developed. Each contained a clue, a puzzle, and a task. Participants collected keys and pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to open the “escape box”. To escape, the jigsaw puzzle had to be successfully completed. Evaluations showed that nurses enjoyed the escape room and found this learning activity meaningful.
Celebrating Certified Nurses Day
On March 19, Certified Nurses Day, we recognized the 1,061 nurses across UW Medical Center who have chosen to deepen their knowledge and strengthen their practice through specialty certification. Each represents nursing expertise, professional commitment, and a dedication to exceptional patient care.
Nursing leaders marked the day by rounding across both campuses, connecting with certified nurses in their clinical environments. These interactions went beyond celebration, creating space to talk about what certification looks like in practice, how to get started, and the resources available to support nurses along the way.
With more than a thousand certified nurses, UW Medical Center continues to foster a culture where professional growth is both supported and celebrated. This commitment is also central to our Magnet journey, reflecting the expertise and engagement that define our nursing practice.
Strengthening Behavioral Health Resources
In 2025, significant progress was made in strengthening the Behavioral Resources across UW Medical Centers. A key milestone was hiring a Nursing Professional Development Specialist, Kate Cioffi, MSN, RN, NPE-BC, to lead the Welle program, ensuring the curriculum and support structures could meet organizational needs in workplace violence prevention education. This investment allows for more consistent training, improved responsiveness to staff needs, and alignment with evolving regulatory and safety standards. Additionally, substantial work was completed to design and develop a centralized website housing Welle materials alongside workplace violence prevention and trauma informed care resources. This comprehensive site—launched in early 2026—provides accessible, system wide guidance to support safe, therapeutic patient interactions across inpatient and ambulatory settings.
Throughout 2025, the team also led enhancements to the gray triangle desktop icon, revising its content to provide more intuitive, just in time behavioral management resources for frontline staff. Clinical Nurse Specialists specializing in Behavioral Health at each campus continued to play an essential role in shaping these efforts, offering expert consultation and supporting acute care teams in implementing best practices. Additionally, inpatient psychiatric services continue to benefit from a designated CNS and clinical nurse educator, whose focused leadership help advance staff competency, patient safety, and the integration of trauma informed principles across psychiatric units.
Lastly, improvements were made to the Safety Net reporting structure to capture more robust and actionable data related to workplace violence events. Most free text fields were replaced with structured dropdown options that allow for more consistent documentation of pre event circumstances and any follow up actions taken. These updates support clearer trend analysis, strengthen systemwide learning, and align with new workplace violence prevention regulations that went into effect in 2026.
Quality Education at the Northwest and Montlake Campuses
Montlake Campus
To address an increase in hospital- acquired infections such as CLABSI (central line- associated bloodstream infections), CAUTI (catheter-associated urinary tract infections), pressure injuries and falls a group of nurse leaders, nurse educators, and front-line nursing staff created an innovative and effective strategy to educate over 1,000 frontline nurses on the Montlake campus. The content was developed through active listening of the voice of the front-line clinician to determine what strategies would be most effective. The approach involved case studies from actual UWMC patient events with multiple interactive and hands-on opportunities to practice and experience care from the patient perspective.
The education was shared with the Northwest campus, who shared the content with their inpatient nurses through their Clinical Excellence Coordinators. The new approach to education was well received on both campuses.
Northwest Campus
Modeled after the four-hour intensive Quality education offered on the Montlake campus, the NW Clinical Excellence Coordinators (CECs) developed their own interactive version and took it on the road. They shared a roving monthly quality topic of the month for four months and were able to target RNs and CNAs on all medical-surgical units throughout the hospital. They provided multiple, drop-in style, 10–15-minute education sessions on both day shift and night shift (with the help of the night shift educator) from August-November of 2025. All staff members were encouraged to participate. Themes included hospital-associated infection prevention (Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections and Central Line-Associated Infections) and Fall and Hospital Acquired Pressure Injury prevention.
Each education topic was delivered through hands on learning stations. The in-service rounding format supported education in small groups, typically reaching 2-5 team members at each drop-in session. This structure created opportunities for staff to ask questions, clarify understanding in real time, and engage in meaningful discussion related to each of the topics. Over the course of four months, this well-received approach resulted in 546 educational encounters, reaching both new and returning staff members.
Northwest Campus Stroke Recertification Successful
In October 2025, UMWC Northwest underwent a thorough Joint Commission review of its stroke services and was successfully recertified as a Primary Stroke Center for an additional two years. Leading an interdisciplinary team of clinicians from nursing, pharmacy, emergency medicine, radiology, and neurology, the nurse Stroke Coordinator, Norma DeLeon, MN, RN, provided program oversight, preparing and presenting a comprehensive, data-driven stroke program to Joint Commission reviewers. Highlighted in the review were the marked improvements in Door-to-CT and Door-to-transfer metrics, expansion of program data collection and analysis, and an innovative live education course. This certification reflects Northwest’s sustained commitment to high-quality, safe, and patient-centered stroke care.
Authentic Nursing Leadership Series
Strengthening Nurse Leader Succession and Growth in 2025
In 2025, the University of Washington Medical Center advanced its commitment to nursing leadership development and succession planning by evolving the existing Emerging Nurse Leader program into the Authentic Nursing Leadership Series. This intentional rebranding reflects a deeper emphasis on intentional leading with authenticity and relationship-based connection, which are hallmarks of UWMC’s Nursing Professional Practice Model and commitment to a healthy work environment.
The 2025 cohort included 22 participants: 13 RN3s, 8 nurse managers, and one director. The expanded participation highlights the organization’s continued investment in cultivating leadership capacity from within as well as strengthening onboarding and cultural alignment for experienced leaders new to UWMC.
The Authentic Nursing Leadership Series continues to provide a hybrid learning experience, blending structured, asynchronous online content through the AACN’s Fundamentals for Nurse Managers course, with monthly UWMC-specific cohort meetings with interactive discussion and reflection. Participants explore essential leadership domains such as feedback and coaching, psychological safety, financial stewardship, conflict navigation, quality outcomes, and staff engagement. The series emphasizes practical application, peer learning, and real-time problem solving to ensure leaders can immediately translate insights into their units and practice areas.
The impact of the 2025 cohort is already evident as throughout the year there were three RN3 participants who advanced into nurse manager roles and one nurse manager participant advanced into a director role. These transitions demonstrate the strength of UWMC’s internal leadership pipeline and the effectiveness of intentional succession planning. By creating structured opportunities for growth and advancement, the organization supports professional mobility while preserving institutional knowledge and culture.
The evolution of the Authentic Nursing Leadership Series reflects more than a name change. It signals a commitment to developing new and now experienced nurse leaders (new to UWMC) to lead with vulnerability, accountability, and compassion. As healthcare complexity continues to grow, UWMC remains dedicated to equipping nurse leaders with the skills, resilience, and strategic thinking necessary to support frontline teams to balance their work and personal lives optimally to deliver exceptional patient care.
Through this investment in authentic leadership, UWMC continues to strengthen its professional practice environment and ensure a robust, prepared nursing leadership workforce for the future.