Country Selector: North America
In this series, we're introducing you to members of Ascom America's clinical team. They have more than 175 years of experience across the spectrum of patient care, from general and specialty intensive care, to pediatrics, emergency room and med-surg, to name a few. As a trusted advisor, we’ve helped more than 2,000 hospitals across North America advance their communication, collaboration and clinical decision support systems through workflow redesign. Meet Kenneth Catoe, BSN, RN.
Introduction: I joined the Ascom team in 2021 and have fallen in love with nursing all over again. I serve our amazing customers as a clinical application specialist. I work with nurse leaders across the United States and Canada. I help each nurse leader with the Ascom solutions to improve their work environment in their units and to give staff the ability to provide safe patient care. I also provide end-user training where I teach the end user at the facility the specific workflows.
I started my healthcare career as a phlebotomist in the Lab (for seven years). I obtained my LPN license in 2010 and became an RN in 2012. I have worked MedSurg (1 year), ER (5 years), CathLab (4 years) and Hospice (1 year) before joining the Ascom team. In October 2018, I worked at Bay Medical Center when Hurricane Michael destroyed it. At this time, I worked in the hospital’s dietary and Environmental Services department. I have always been a natural caregiver, and nursing has allowed me to take a natural talent and turn it into a career.
Nurses are the patient advocates, and at Ascom, I work to be the healthcare worker’s advocate.
Q. What’s most satisfying about your job on the clinical team?
A. Improving the work environment of healthcare workers. Nursing is my passion in life, and with Ascom I have the ability to assist nurses and healthcare workers in providing the best, most efficient, and safest patient care possible to their patients.
Q. Describe your most successful project – what were the challenges in achieving it, and how did you overcome them?
A. The most successful project is when we have nursing leadership’s support. When leadership is involved from the beginning, it makes the project run the most smoothly. Their staff is motivated to adopt the technology, which is key to a successful project. The most successful implementation I’ve worked on was at a large teaching hospital in Rhode Island that was licensed for more than 700 beds. In total, we deployed the Myco3 handsets to every nurse at three hospitals in their network. The facilities improved their communication efforts by providing the staff with a handset. With the Myco3, staff had a device where they did not have to leave the bedside to make a phone call. Staff were more efficient in their daily workflows by using the Myco3 device and the Epic Rover app.
Q. What three things do you think will be important in changing the way nurses work/healthcare operates in the future?
A. Better patient outcomes - As quickly as technology advances, early warning scoring and predictive analytics are going to be tools nurses can use to help provide better patient outcomes.
Adoption of technology - Virtual nursing will be very beneficial to hospitals. This will give the bedside nurse more resources to use when providing care.
Safe nurse-to-patient ratios - healthcare is in a strain of having to do more with less. Hospitals that have safe nurse-to-patient ratios will provide staff with the ability to do their job most effectively.
Q. Share a fun fact about your clinical experience with Ascom with us.
A. I have consulted and trained more than 53 hospitals in 26 states and two countries. I have trained more than 500 healthcare workers on Ascom solutions in 2.5 years, and I have assisted Ascom clinicians in Australia, Singapore, and the UK.
Q. How has your clinical background helped you in your role today?
A. I have had such an amazing bedside nursing career. In my career, I have seen so much love, joy and healing as a bedside nurse. I have also seen the hardships, stress and burnout nurses face. The Ascom solutions help provide support to the bedside staff making their shift more efficient, saving the staff useless steps.
Q. What do you wish you knew in your earlier career that you know now?
A. I wish I could enjoy the learning process earlier in my career. I put so much stress on myself for the lack of knowledge I had that only comes with experience. I felt if I didn’t know everything, I potentially would hurt someone. Now, I embrace the learning process and take full advantage of learning new skills. What felt like a weakness of not knowing everything I have turned into my strength to learn as much as I can.