Nurse Commander – Manjeet Kaur, Illinois

Manjeet Kaur RN, MS, MPH, CPHQ is the Assistant Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for Hospice at Amedisys, Inc., the leading provider of home health, hospice and personal care in the United States. Kaur is also a DNP student at Yale School of Nursing. Kaur is responsible for developing policies to ensure the delivery of safe, quality, patent centric care for home health and hospice patients (HH&HSP) at 146 hospice care centers in 33 states across the United States. Home health and hospice nurses provide care to sick and elderly in a variety of settings that patients call their home and includes nursing homes, assisted living facility, group homes, hospitals, and private residence.

During COVID-19 public health emergency, Kaur have been developing and disseminating new policies and policy updates daily. Kaur has multiple areas of expertise including public health, infection control, risk management, informatics, forensics nursing and nursing education. Kaur is drawing upon all her knowledge to respond effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The biggest challenge for HH&HSP nurses is to maintain continuity of care while keeping the patients and staff safe from infection. I have been leveraging technology (Zoom, Blue Jeans, Teams, etc.) to meet with industry leaders from across the country to discuss changes in PPE practices, expected COVID-19 patient surge in home care patient population, and  develop creative ways to support patient & family at end of life. I have been using a variety of technological platforms to disseminate policies and bringing nurses quickly up to speed on use of new technology. Holding phone and virtual meetings with nurses to walk them through COVID19 exposure determination decisions and to brainstorm the contingencies around staff shortage & PPE shortage keeps me thinking on my feet, said Kaur.

Kaur identified Nurse leaders such as Ms. Jean Moody-Williams, RN, MPP, the Acting Director of Center for Clinical Standards and Quality Center for  Medicare & Medicaid  Services( CMS) as being instrumental in escalating the role of Advanced Practice Nurses during the COVID-19 crisis. The CARES Act bolstered senior citizen’s access to home and health care services. The law also authorizes Nurse Practitioners to certify and recertify home healthcare services for Medicare patients. 

 Action:

1. Mentorship: Experienced nurses have the best opportunity to elevate nursing profession and promote nurse leadership by becoming mentors for new nurses. In a mentor role, nurse leaders can teach to identify and apply evidence-based improvements to care.
2. Leverage technology: The tech savvy nurse leader can use social media to raise COVID-19 prevention awareness or create open source learning platforms.