This presentation will describe a CNM-designed quality improvement project aimed at decreasing the length of stay in an obstetrical triage unit. Improved team communication, patient engagement and utilization of nurse-driven orders decreased patient time in triage and increased client and staff satisfaction. Learn how a quality improvement project can target a real clinical problem and produce real results!
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Cathy Collins-Fulea, DNP, CNM, FACNM, is a course faculty member for Frontier Nursing University. She was in active clinical practice as a CNM from 1981 until joining the FNU faculty in January 2019, spending her career serving the women of inner-city Detroit. Her basic nursing and midwifery education was in England. After returning to this country she opened an in-hospital birthing center in Detroit at a time when only 5 other CNMs were practicing in the state. After 10 years she joined the Henry Ford Health System where she started a new practice with 6 other CNMs. Over the years, Cathy grew this practice into one of the most respected in the state, leading 22 midwives delivering at 2 hospitals and practicing in 12 outpatient centers.
Through the years, Cathy has been active professionally on both the state and national levels with the American College of Nurse-Midwives. She has chaired many committees including Michigan Chapter of ACNM, the National Quality Management Section, the Division of Standards and Practice, the Service Directors Network and the Volunteer Structure Re-Alignment Task Force. In addition, she has served on the ACNM BOD as a Regional Representative, two terms as Vice President and is currently President-elect.
In 1998 Cathy was inducted as an ACNM Fellow. In 2003 she received the prestigious Dorthea Lang Pioneer Award from the ACNM Foundation in recognition of her work developing and implementing ACNM benchmarking and her work as editor and author of An Administrative Manual for Nurse-Midwifery Services. She has published on clinical as well as practice issues and has spoken nationally and internationally on a variety of topics.
