Ingram’s February 2023

Lifetime Service

Heroes in Healthcare 2023

KENT BARR North Kansas City Hospital The competitive cauldron that is Rockhurst High School pushed young Kent Barr as both a student and an athlete, and he happily rose to the challenge in classes related to health, biology, and chemistry. When the time came to consider college, one of his football coaches suggested he look into Creighton University in Omaha. “I was the first in my family to go away to college, but it wasn’t like we did grand tours of all these schools—we didn’t have that kind of money,” Barr recalls. But Creighton stepped up with scholarships that got him through his bachelors and the medical school there, setting him on a path to North Kansas City Hospital, where he recently retired after a run of more than four decades treating patients with cardiovascular disease. “One of the reasons I really liked cardiology, and I think it’s less so today, in the day compared to a lot of specialties, we had enough diagnostic tools to figure out what was going on with patients,” Barr says. Innovation in the field, he says, “came in bursts,”

as with balloon angioplasty and treatments for acute myocardial infarction. “Rather than put a patient in the coronary unit with pain relief and hope for the best, we actually were going in to treat acute heart attacks. That was groundbreaking.” Making his career in Kansas City was an easy choice: “It was home,” he says, and North Kansas City Hospital was “an ideal situation for me.” He joined a group with four doctors, found a convivial work setting, and stayed for his entire run. “That doesn’t happen today as often as in the old days,” he said. He’ll retain his hospital board seat and cherish the memories of his service. “In general, I’m thankful for the gratefulness and true appreciation that patients have given over the years for the help. It’s hard to put into words. You get to the point where they’re not, well, certainly, they are patients, but it’s more than that. You look forward to seeing them, ask how they’re doing, ask about their families. That bond is what I appreciate the most.”

NANETTE HOUCK Liberty Hospital

NOREEN THOMPSON The University of Kansas Hospital Compassion is always a hallmark of effective caregivers, but that quality can be strained by the circumstances of a hospitalization—especially when mental illness is involved. For more than 35 years as a clinical nurse special ist, Noreen Thompson demonstrated the dignity and grace that are essential virtues for effective care. Retirement

Nursing was in the back of Na nette Houck’s mind, even as a child, but so was the possibility of growing up to become a lawyer. The transfor mative moment in her life arrived un der horrible conditions: An industrial accident that burned her father—sec ond- and third-degree—over nearly half his body. “He spent three months

in the burn unit of a hospital, and many months in rehab,” Houck re calls. “During that time, the relationships, and experiences I had with physicians and staff, helped me realize I wanted to be a nurse. I always have been drawn to helping others and advocating for change and improvement to help make people’s lives better.” She didn’t wait to act on that revelation, taking a hospital job while still in high school, and then through college. “While working as a night nurse, I met sev eral mentors—staff nurses and supervisors—who inspired me. I’ve always been drawn to healing as well as to opportunities that allowed me to help and advocate for others,” she says. She came to Liberty Hospital in 2019 after 31 years up the highway at Excelsior Springs Hospital. In her role as vice president for quality and patient savings, she’s a major driver in the hospital’s award-winning efforts to ensure patient safety. As is often the case in the nurse-to-administrator track, the opportunity to impact more lives formed her career path. “As an administrator, I am in a position to enact positive change,” Houck says. “I am driven to advocate for process improvements to benefit patients. At a Critical Access Hospital, I assumed a role that allowed me to recruit specialists from larger hospitals to come in and serve the community,” and she’s able to focus on quality, safety, risk and outreach at a hospital with more than 200 licensed beds. “One of the greatest compliments I received here was being referred to as a ‘Swiss Army Knife,’ meaning I have experience in such a variety of roles that I can help influence good work across the organization,” says Houck.

recently came calling for Thompson, but the legacy she leaves be- hind at The University of Kansas Hospital is now part of the culture. Earlier in her career, Thompson recalls, she was paired with a nurse manager by the name of Tammy Peterman to lead a service-excellence committee. Its goal: Changing the culture of a former state-owned en terprise with a spotty history. “This gave us an opportunity to teach large numbers of staff about customer service,” Thompson says. Peter man, now head of the health system’s Kansas City division, and CEO Bob Page have “steered our organization to a place of excellence that I would have never dreamed possible in those days,” Thompson says. “I witnessed and hopefully supported that mission of excellence in ser vice.” Thompson is a Philadelphia native whose parents taught her the value of social justice and service to others. “As a teen, I worked in an orphanage in the summers and met a nun who provided the children’s nursing care; she was another role model.” Catholic-school education reinforced the call to service, and she earned her BSN and master’s at the University of Pennsylvania. After she had moved to KC 40 years ago while starting a family, hospital officials saw a need for a psychi atric liaison, and she was intrigued because it would “focus on bring ing psychiatric mental health to the medical inpatients. It included support and education for the non-psychiatric staff. This sub-special ty of psychiatric nursing was a perfect fit for me.” Throughout her career, she says, “my focus has always been on doing the best I can do in the moment for the patient, family or staff .”

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February 2023

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