Employee Spotlight: Lorissa Campos
We love to highlight the amazing work of our employees and this month we shine the spotlight on our Senior Systems Administrator in the Operating Room (OR), Lorissa Campos. She answered a few questions about her role, recent certification and what she loves about the team at Artesia General Hospital.
Name: Lorissa Campos
Position and Department: Senior Systems Administrator in the OR
How long have you worked at Artesia General Hospital? 10 years
In her own words
How long have you worked at Artesia General Hospital and what does your current role entail?
I have been here for 10 years. As the Senior Systems Administrator in the OR, I’m in charge of payroll, surgery charges, chart audits/documentation, on-call staffing schedules, maintaining the surgeon preference cards and creating new ones as needed, creating and maintaining our electronic forms and supporting the OR scheduler as a back-up. As the Endoscopy Coordinator, I oversee of the day-to-day endoscopy operations, am a super user for the Medivators scope washer, ensure the staff are up-to-date on their scope washing competencies, help wash scopes as needed, make sure our equipment and scopes are in good working order, make sure we have the supplies we need, troubleshoot the GI system or equipment when issues arise, train new physicians/locums on our GI documentation and handle systems configurations as needed.
What do you want others to know about what it’s like to work with patients in the OR?
Working as a nurse in the OR is not for the faint of heart. You have to be okay with looking at blood and serious injuries, dealing with emergent situations, being an advocate for the unconscious patient and being a collaborative team member. The success of your patient’s surgery is a team effort.
If you could describe OR caregivers/the OR team at Artesia General Hospital in three words, what would they be and why?
1. Confident – The team members I work with are confident in what they do. Perioperative services has a wide range of staff from different entities, so I feel this has made us all self-aware of what we bring to our team and fueled a desire for personal and professional improvement at all levels.
2. Compassion – From our surgeons to our anesthesia providers, mid-levels, nursing staff, first assists, surgical techs, central sterile processing techs, perioperative cost specialist and EVS staff, we all have some form of interaction with our patients—whether it is direct or indirect. We listen to our patients’ concerns and try to do our best to show empathy and respect, and to provide privacy and a safe environment. We all work together to advocate for our patients, because as you all know, the surgical process is a very vulnerable time for our patients and they are putting their trust in us.
3. Competent – We have many staff members in surgical services that have multiple years of experience and that hold licenses and certifications. We are required to be competent in our areas before we can do things on our own. Our competence as a team is what has led to our outstanding patient satisfaction scores and good patient outcomes.
What inspired you to pursue your perioperative nurse certification (CNOR)?
Randall Rentschler, perioperative director, inspired me to get my CNOR certification. As a leader, he strongly encourages us to continue our professional development/improvement and to keep learning and bettering ourselves.
How did you balance your job responsibilities and personal responsibilities as you earned your certification at the same time?
As I would find some free time at work or home, I would read the CNOR Exam Prep book and do the practice questions. I have a 7-month-old son, so finding free time was almost impossible. My husband and I travel to Ruidoso, NM quite often to our second home, so I would study on the road a lot.
What advice would you give to others in a similar situation?
Take advantage of any free time you have at work or home. Working on the practice questions was a good thing for me because if I got the answers wrong, it was a guide for me to go back and read what I didn’t retain.
How did Artesia General Hospital support you as you pursued your goals?
Randall allowed me to study in my office during my free time and kept encouraging me to get it done before his retirement.
What are the top three qualities/traits you believe someone should have to become a CNOR?
The drive for excellence, a commitment to upholding the highest standards in patient safety in the operating room and the desire to provide better clinical outcomes for our patients.
What does it mean to you to be able to provide this critical service to patients?
Working in the operating room and providing this service to our patients is something I’m happy to be a part of because often, elective or emergency surgeries are going to improve their quality of life or even save their life. During the perioperative phase, our patients are the most vulnerable, but they are putting their trust in us to make them better and that says a lot about the work we do. Our patients have options to go to another hospital but they choose to come to Artesia General Hospital.
When you look back on your career so far at Artesia General Hospital, what are you most proud of and why?
Looking back on my career here at Artesia General Hospital, I am most proud of the many projects I have been a part of, but the one that stands out to me is the OR Optimization Project I completed in 2017. The project was put in place to help improve the workflow of all perioperative services. I redesigned our existing electronic forms and built new ones to replace the flowcharts some of our nurses were using to reduce the time spent on patient documentation. I built and completed our preference cards, which outline the supplies, equipment and room setup that a surgeon needs to safely perform a particular procedure. The project was a huge success because it greatly improved the workflow and communication of our nurses, surgical techs and central sterile processing techs. In addition to the enhancements I mentioned, our preference cards also improved our surgery charging process and helped increase our revenue. For my efforts on this project, I was chosen for Artesia General Hospital’s People’s Choice Award in 2018.