At Westchester Medical Center, we are proud to have one of the best nursing teams in the nation. Through the efforts of our cohesive team, we took a small idea, and through collaboration, developed our medical center’s RN Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC) Team.

The team was created and developed—and is staffed—by Registered Nurses. Even the name identifies who we are: a team of nurses. We started our life together as a group when PICC lines were in their genesis stage, and we have grown with the national standards for central lines. We exemplify a good nursing team because we work together, choreographing our patient interactions as if the steps of care were a fine dance.

We were challenged at first by the newness of the idea, but over time we have grown into being comfortable and verbal at national conferences. The RN PICC Team strategizes about problems, concerns and a myriad of patient issues, and is frequently validated through research literature and conferences that are dealing with the same issues. We have been on the forefront of PICCs and feel privileged to continue this journey as an all-nurse team.

As a small group that serves our region’s tertiary teaching university, we see and do things every day that challenge us, but we remain a team. The focus of our team has been and will continue to be what is best for our patients. Everything we do revolves around how we can produce better outcomes for them.

Having the same goals makes it easier to work as a team, as our foundations are the same. We don’t need to verbalize our thoughts and concerns because we’re looking at things through the same eyes. At the end of our day, as we reflect on what could have been different, we pave the way for a better future.

Top 5 Reasons to Love Your Nurse Team:

1. In this current day of healthcare challenges, we believe that working in the supportive environment of a healthy team makes all the difference in job satisfaction.
2. When the job before us seems complex, impossible or consuming, it is through the mutually supportive environment of teamwork that the day becomes possible—and, in fact, successful and enjoyable.
3. Because we are encouraged, affirmed and held accountable to each other in our professional standards, we work in an environment of constant support.
4. We spend most of our day in the work environment. Because of the team foundation, our day flows seamlessly. On days that would normally present a challenge, because of our professional compatibilities and cohesive standards we’re always ‘in this together.’
5. As part of a team, we’re never alone in our daily professional role. We have times when we’re practicing independently, but we know that we have the support of one another, and that at any given moment, a phone call, or sometimes even a gaze at one another, elicits help.