A pair of environmental services (EVS) caregivers, Dulce Rocha-Salazar and Rosa Carvajal, helped a Spanish-speaking grandmother feel validated and supported at Utah Valley Hospital. The grandmother had been alone in a room near the NICU with her daughter’s new triplets when she began to feel frustrated that a nurse hadn’t come in. Dulce and Rosa, who both speak Spanish, happened to walk by, when the grandmother flagged them down.
“The babies had transitioned from being in the NICU and were getting ready to go home,” says Kris Boyer, RN, nurse manager, who says the entire family is Spanish-speaking. “We’d given the parents a room over a period of two days where they could provide all the care—a process called rooming-in,” she says.
Alice Jensen, RN, a certified Spanish interpreter, had helped the parents and answered all their questions that morning. She says in the afternoon, unbeknownst to her, the parents had gone home to shower—leaving the grandmother with the babies.
Dulce Rocha-Salazar
The grandmother was getting frustrated that she’d been left alone. “One of the home monitors had begun beeping and the grandmother called to get a hold of me,” says Alice. “I’d been assigned to other duties and the nurse next to me was feeding a baby, so no one was able to answer.”
When Dulce and Rosa realized the grandmother was upset, they managed up the situation perfectly. “They took a moment to proactively discuss rooming-in with this grandmother,” says Kris. “She didn’t have any framework for what had happened throughout the night, nor even the objective of a rooming-in experience. She had no idea why she was being ignored and she wasn’t happy.”
Instead of agreeing with the grandmother’s frustration or moving on because it wasn’t their problem, Dulce and Rosa took a moment to educate her. “They not only helped her understand the concept of rooming-in, and that it can be a hard thing, but that it’s precisely the right thing to do when preparing to care for an infant at home,” says Kris. “This helped reframe the grandmother’s expectations and understand why the nurse had stayed away.”
Rosa Carvajal
Their actions completely deescalated the situation, and the grandmother was apologetic when Alice came in afterward. “The professional response from Dulce and Rosa changed the perception about the kind of care that was being given,” Kris says. “This is exactly the experience that our patients deserve.”
Alice says, “Without these sweet, thoughtful, Spanish-speaking ladies, the situation could’ve been a potentially contentious misunderstanding. Grandma instead suddenly felt like she was in the best of care. As a nurse, I was bursting with gratitude for these caregivers. They also took it a step further and offered to get her juice and water and took a minute to stay in the room and chat with her. They were amazing and exemplify all that Intermountain promotes.”
“It’s also impressive that Dulce and Rosa took the initiative to get familiar with rooming-in while working on the floor,” Kris adds. “They’ve invested in and learned what the NICU experience is like for a family. They chose that 200% accountability model for taking ownership of a patient experience.”