Patient Care Services 2025 Annual Report
- People and culture Jump to people and culture
- Quality and clinical expertise Jump to quality and clinical expertise
- Research and innovation Jump to research and innovation
- Education Jump to education
- Community and advocacy Jump to community and advocacy
- Awards and recognitions Jump to awards and recognitions
2025 at a glance
We believe every child deserves seamless, high-quality care at every stage of their health journey. Through our dedication to empowering personal and professional growth among team members, we’re bringing our mission to life.
By the numbers
“Our team members come together each day and night to do some of the most rewarding, impactful work imaginable. Their expertise, compassion and dedication make Children's Colorado an extraordinary place to work and to receive care."Jen Roth, MSN, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, Senior Vice President, Chief Nursing Executive
People and culture
Here, we invest in our teams, developing strong leaders, fostering a culture of learning and creating an environment where all team members thrive.
Professional governance accomplishments
We value every team member’s voice and involvement in decision-making that impacts professional practice. The Division of Patient Care Services is committed to a council governance structure to ensure those values thrive.
Clinical Informatics Practice Council
The Clinical Informatics Practice Council (CIPC) guides, reviews and approves the work and outcomes of clinical informatics in support of the Division of Patient Care Services.
In the last year, the CIPC took on several initiatives, including:
- Nasogastric tube documentation updates to support care beyond the hospital
- Pain documentation added within the medical administration
- Epic’s patient insights (bedside clinician input and validation)
- Visitor interaction documentation updates
Quality Practice Council
The Quality Practice Council (QPC) makes data-driven decisions and recommendations that impact practice and provide input and recommendations on key initiatives.
In the last year, the QPC took on several initiatives, including:
- Collaboration with the pharmacy team and medication safety team on a medication label project, IV pump criteria and IV med checks
- Partnership with patient safety team on Target Zero InFocus, a campaign promoting safety in speaking up
- Increased engagement in clinical decision-making
Practice Environment Council
The Practice Environment Council (PEC) promotes and facilitates an environment that engages all clinical team members and helps them thrive in their professional practice.
In the last year, the PEC led several improvements focused on recognition, including:
- Maintaining a 3.95 (out of 5) score for the question “My work is appreciated” in Q4 2025
- Increasing participation in our employee recognition program by 60% via a council-led initiative
- Continuing collaboration with patient-family experience team to re-launch an appreciation campaign, Spread-a-Smile
Education Advisory Council
The Educational Advisory Council (EAC) is a forum for ownership of professional growth and development across the division. We view all team members as lifelong learners.
In the last year, the EAC team:
- Achieved response rate goal for 2025 Continuing Education Assessment
- Focused on responding to assessment results
- Expanded membership and matched three new council members for unlicensed assistive personnel roles
Creating shared goals for clinical advancement
In 2025, we enhanced our Clinical Advancement Program (CAP). These changes allowed us to better recognize and support professional growth for frontline nurses through a clinical ladder, and to celebrate the full depth and impact of nursing practice. The collective insights of our team members helped shape a shared goal of this initiative: to make the CAP process more equitable in frontline roles across our system of care.
Meet our DifferenceMakers
“I truly think the most meaningful part of my job is being able to provide the best care with my family and their patient that I possibly can, and if I can have any impact to make their stay a little better and their stress a little bit more manageable for their day, then I've done my job.”
— Stevie Angelo, Clinical Nurse, Cardiac Intensive Care Unit
“I love that I get to work with families on their most exciting days, and I get to walk them through their hardest days.”
—Maddie Vigil, Nurse, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
“I want to be a trusted space for my team, where they can say, ‘I’m burned out, I have compassion fatigue,’ and know that I’m not going to think less of them for that. It’s so important to hold space where they can let themselves go and then pick up the pieces in an appropriate way so we can press on together.”
—Samantha Mangar, Associate Clinical Manager, Pediatric Psychiatric Emergency Department
“The bond on our flight team is a must. You really have to trust each other. You're with each other for 12 hours, just like you're at the bedside … It's a tight family"
—Claire Owens, Flight Nurse, Children’s One
“I first see families during the scariest part of their pregnancy and when they get really terrible news. And then here’s a toddler running around playing doctor and listening to my heart. I look at the parents and we all just pause for a moment to think — wow, we made it here! I love getting to see them thrive.”
—Sarah Eaton, Nurse, Briargate Cardiology Clinic
Quality and clinical expertise
Our commitment to quality and clinical expertise is reflected in every aspect of our patient care. Our team members are experts in their fields and continuously push boundaries to meet the growing needs of our patients.
Magnet redesignation
Children's Colorado locations within the Denver metro region received a fifth Magnet designation from the American Nurse Credentialing Center in 2025. Only 10% of U.S. hospitals had achieved Magnet designation at that time. Accomplishing this recognition five times in a row places Children's Colorado among the top 1.4% of hospitals nationwide.
Care coordination strategy evolution
In 2025, we approved a care coordination strategy that creates new opportunities for team members to learn from one another, spread consistent workflows and better support patients in their healthcare journey. This ensures eache patient's care plan meets their individualized needs, with a focus on the right care at the right time. Our strategy established a structure that now anchors all care coordination, including transitional care coordination and specific disease management.
Transitional care coordination success
Families often face challenges after an inpatient stay, including follow-up appointments, medications, equipment and ongoing symptoms. To help them navigate this vulnerable time, our team provides relationship-based care coordination that starts in the hospital and carries forward for up to 30 days after discharge. This coordinated support has resulted in fewer emergency visits and readmissions, shorter lengths of stay and a 70% increase in caregiver confidence.
Reducing patient deterioration events in the CPCU
In late 2024, the Cardiac Arrest Reduction and Excellence (CARE) team in the cardiac progressive care unit (CPCU) implemented in-situ simulation and education accompanied by real-time bedside coaching to decrease both emergent transfers and cardiac arrest rates.
Shifting outcomes through mental health care
Over the last year, we made intentional efforts to address youth mental health through a number of improvements and new approaches to care.
In late 2024, we launched a pilot that created high-acuity and low-acuity emergency behavioral health tracks. When kids enter the emergency department, they are triaged and receive an emergency severity index score and a behavioral health score. Based on these, providers can assess the level of care they need.
To help kids and lower behavioral health readmission rates, we created a new care transitions team which includes education specialists, health navigators, care coordinators, family peer support partners and many others. It’s reached more than 150 patients and families.
We screen more than 90% of youth for suicidal ideation and provide resources and care to those who screen positive. This screening initiative is one component of our Preventing Suicide Initiative, a systemwide approach to suicide prevention that makes healthcare settings safer and more compassionate for kids.
Research and innovation
The Patient Care Services team plays a critical role in advancing care delivery, driving evidence-based practice and partnering across disciplines to reinvent the future of care delivery.
By the numbers
Improving behavioral health care
Our Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) supports kids in need of intensive mental health care. Its capacity is 30 patient slots, but the typical daily census was only 16 patients, despite a long waitlist. Nurses led a project to standardize length of stay, create alternate caregiver participation options and identify a single decision-maker to ensure the unit can serve more kids in crisis.
Transforming the NICU workforce
Previously, all NICU nurses at our Anschutz Medical Campus location served all NICU patients. The team recently adopted a new approach that organized patients into cohorts based on diagnosis and created care teams assigned to each of these cohorts, or neighborhoods. This change has created consistency and better communication and allowed us to discharge patients 1.4 days sooner than our prior average.
Mucositis is a complication of chemotherapy that causes painful mouth sores. To address this, the team, led by Jen Lamb, clinical nurse IV, conducted a literature review on ways to reduce mucositis severity. They identified a form of red-light therapy called photobiomodulation (PBM) therapy that showed impressive results. In 2025, the team provided 2,266 PBM treatments and had only 13 mucositis admissions. Additionally, the team has seen increased healing times for oral mucosa ulcers, decreased opioid use and better oral-care compliance.
Education
We are committed to investing in our team’s personal growth because fostering a culture of continuous learning and developing strong leaders helps us elevate clinical practice. That’s why we dedicate so much time, support and effort toward education and professional development. Through opportunities, such as the Nurses Leading the Way conference, and through work that supports education for community partners and future generations of clinicians, we continue to better our care.
By the numbers
Staying sharp through simulation
Every year, our team uses simulation to advance patient safety and quality improvement initiatives across our hospital locations.
Several team members incorporated simulation to improve clinical education, including Kristen Pekau, who created a new training on having challenging conversations with families, and Christina Janda, who standardized education for NICU nurses preparing to care for the sickest babies.
In the spring of 2025, the team in the Clinical and Translational Research Center participated in a high-fidelity code simulation, which uses cutting-edge mannequins that replicate human physiology. This was a first for Children’s Colorado.
This year, our team members participated in a first-of-its-kind patient safety training for emergency department RNs. The training, hosted by the Simulation Center, focused on intraosseous needle placement using a cadaver. More than 50 nurses from across our system of care participated.
Our 2025 ‘Sim Wars’ event
Sim Wars is an annual themed edutainment event during which teams from across our system of care come together to compete in simulated resuscitations of fictional patients. The event showcases our team members’ creativity, innovation and teamwork, with our commitment to patient safety at the heart of it all.
Supporting our team in growth
We continue to foster a team dedicated to constant learning and improvement through various initiatives and support for individuals’ ideas and approaches.
A new generation of men in nursing
Our second annual Males in Nursing event, held in collaboration with Denver Public Schools, brought together 80 eigth grade males from five different middle schools and 20 Children’s Colorado male nurses and clinical leaders. The group completed hands-on workshops on topics including first aid training, vitals, CPR, nursing soft skills and pathways into the profession.
Post-orientation support in the CICU
In the cardiac intensive care unit, Alex Symes, clinical nurse IV, reimagined a post-orientation support program for nurses in their first two years. The peer-to-peer education model improves and supports critical thinking through interactive learning. Program participants reported significantly higher confidence in independent decision-making.
Community and advocacy
Here, we support kids and families both inside and outside our hospital. Through community-building work and advocacy, we help ensure brighter futures for children.
School-health nursing
Through school-health nursing, we broaden our team’s impact beyond the walls of Children’s Colorado.
School nursing for medically complex kids
The School Health team secured a federal grant to create and implement a comprehensive training program for rural school nurses across Colorado. A team of approximately 30 nurses was organized into nine subject matter expert groups based on high-need health topics. During the 2024-25 school year, the team held three full-day, in-person trainings in rural regions across Colorado.
Partnering with schools for safe hearts
School nurses from Children’s Colorado collaborated with the Littleton Public School District to help the district earn a designation as a “heart safe school.” The designation highlights the importance of preparation and emergency planning in a school setting, as each one-minute delay in treatment decreases the chance of cardiac arrest survival by 10%.
Influencing policy through advocacy
As frontline care providers, members of our Patient Care Services team are uniquely positioned to serve as advocates for child health. Our model empowers and supports team members in bringing about real change for children, families and our entire community.
Creating opportunities for advocacy
We designed our quarterly “Advocacy Spark Huddles” to ensure clinical team members receive timely updates and opportunities for dialogue with the Government Affairs team on current child health policy and advocacy priorities.
Nurses share testimonies
During the 2025 Colorado legislative session, several Patient Care Services team members testified on topics including cardiac emergency preparedness in school sports and strengthening childhood programs, such as HealthySteps.
Nurse advocacy training day
In 2025, the Government Affairs team hosted 30 nursing team leaders at the Colorado State Capitol for a nurse policy and advocacy training. This training helps ensure nurses feel confident sharing their experiences with elected leaders.
Addressing health disparities
We know that social drivers of health can have just as much of an impact on health as clinical care. To that end, many members of our team focused on efforts to reduce health disparities. For example, Janette Mendoza, clinical nurse IV at our Anschutz Medical Campus location, spearheaded a project to enhance signage in patient exam rooms identifying a family’s need for interpreter services. This resulted in a 700% improvement in interpreter use/documentation compliance. Additionally, Madison Schmitz, clinical nurse IV, undertook a project to improve knowledge of health literacy concepts to remove barriers to care, highlighting systemic barriers and proposing actionable recommendations.
Awards and recognitions
Our incredible team members are the heart of all we do at Children’s Colorado. The recognitions gathered here represent just a fraction of the extraordinary work being done across our system of care each day and night.
2025 accomplishments
Four nurses receive top statewide award
The Excellence in Nursing Award, formerly known as the Nightingale Luminary Award, is Colorado's highest nursing recognition, honoring individuals who lead through advocacy, innovation and leadership. In 2025, Children’s Colorado proudly celebrated the 28 nominees, nine finalists and four exceptional nurses who received this prestigious honor from the Colorado Nurses Foundation. Our winners were:
Laura Pickford, MSN, RN, CPN, Clinical Practice Specialist, Community Health
Gennaro Scopo, MSN, RN, CRRN, ONC, CPN, Clinical Nurse IV, Level 6 Surgical, Anschutz Medical Campus
Julie Wilken, MPS, RN, NCSN, Clinical Manager, School Health Program
Nicole Greco, BSN, RN, Clinical Nurse II, Gastro/Liver Clinic, Anschutz Medical Campus
Celebrating DAISY Award recognitions
The DAISY Awards recognize nurses who provide outstanding, compassionate care for patients and families.