- Cathy Kashmer, CVT, CHEP, center, with The Bellevue Hospital's (TBH) Cardiopulmonary Department, is TBH's 2013 nominee for the Ohio Hospital Association Health Care Worker of the Year Award.
Cathy Kashmer, CVT, CHEP, with The Bellevue Hospital’s (TBH) Cardiopulmonary Department, is TBH’s nominee for the 2013 Ohio Hospital Association’s (OHA) Albert E. Dyckes Health Care Worker of the Year Award. A total of 62 hospital employees from across Ohio were nominated, with the winner and all nominees to be honored June 11 at a banquet in Columbus.
Kashmer and her husband, Earl, reside in Clyde. Cathy has one daughter, Erika, and two grandsons, Peyton and Parker.
The Albert E. Dyckes Health Care Worker of the Year Award has been given annually since 1996 to one Ohio caregiver who personifies a leader who gives back to the community, routinely goes beyond the call of duty and has overcome odds to succeed. The award is presented at the OHA Recognition Dinner at the OHA annual meeting.
The nomination of Kashmer for the award reads in part: “Cathy Kashmer is a natural leader, a patient advocate, a bright and courageous employee who always puts her patients first. She’s an individual who looks for ways of improving the patient experience while challenging herself to be the best. She can direct of hospital full of people during a disaster, drill or actual event, and takes time to hold her patient’s hands when they are scared. Physicians compliment her and Joint Commission Surveyors commend her. The Bellevue Hospital is proud of her and her representation of our facility.
“Cathy started working as an Echocardiology/Vascular Technician at The Bellevue Hospital, January 1992. Her letter of reference stated she was an “extraordinarily bright individual who takes on new information and new tasks easily. She is not afraid to work long hours. She is also capable of handling difficult patients, amazingly gifted in her technological capabilities, competent to substitute in a variety of positions, friendly, teaches and educates expertly, and even handles insurance problems, including Worker’s Compensation.
“Throughout the next 20 years, Cathy has not only proven the reference letter, but has excelled and expanded her skills. She continued her education; advanced her abilities as clinical instructor; took on new programs, such as Emergency Preparedness, and now chairs the program; managed grants; joined the Safety Committee; and started Freedom from Smoking classes. She continues to adapt her schedule to patients needs; gives talks to organizations, groups, businesses and schools on Disaster Planning or cardiac risks; serves on the Northwest Ohio Emergency Preparedness Committee assisting in planning drills, rewriting policies, and coordinating efforts of four counties emergency response organizations with our hospital. She leads by example but you’re going to have to walk fast to keep up.
“Cathy developed a new department schedule and method of scheduling patients allowing Cardiopulmonary to expand hours and reduce overtime.
“In 1992, Cathy was asked to be on a Safety Code Committee. Soon, she was responsible for the Code, then all of the codes, then the Disaster Committee. That led her to planning drills, becoming the Incident Commander, then involvement in the Ohio Emergency Preparedness Program. She is self-taught and knowledgeable enough that during the last Joint Commission visit, the surveyor praised Cathy, her expertise, and commended the program.
“Cathy gives disaster-planning programs to everyone from elementary students to the local seniors at the Mature Audience Luncheon, coordinating with local organization such as the American Red Cross.
“She attends meetings and conferences with area and regional Emergency Preparedness agencies, often on her own time, helping to develop better ways to communicate and to provide necessary supplies and services during a disaster.
“Throughout her career, Cathy has self-educated by taking night/weekend classes and conferences, reading, and using her own time and money when needed. At her core is an iron-willed determination to do whatever is needed to problem solve by doing the right thing.”