ICU charge nurse offers keepsakes for families after loss
For families with a loved one in the intensive care unit (ICU), nurses often become a steady source of information, guidance and reassurance. Those relationships inspired Jordan Olson, ICU charge nurse with UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital, to create a small keepsake for families grieving a loss.
“In the ICU, we often have patients who are there for a month,” Olson said. “So you really get to know the family members — and the patient, through them, if the patient is not awake during that time, which is often.”
When a patient dies, it can be an emotionally challenging experience for everyone involved. At Poudre Valley Hospital, Olson introduced a way to help ICU nurses express compassion and human connection: Inside a small, corked glass bottle with plastic heart tokens is a printed EKG strip from one of the patient’s last heartbeats, creating a personal keepsake for loved ones.
After the family has had some time to grieve, the nurse offers the memento for them to take home. This also can help with the transition as the family begins to navigate the next steps.
“Having that to kind of bridge that — as, ‘here’s something you can bring with you’ — I think is helpful on both sides,” Olson said.
Nurses have shared that many family members expressed gratitude for having a tangible reminder of their loved one. Since the keepsakes were introduced in March, nurses have offered them to dozens of families. Each nurse presents the memento to family members in the way they find most appropriate.
“It’s really nice for those families and our staff to have those connections,” Olson said. “The families have someone to talk to and open up to, and staff feel like they really are supporting them.”
Olson joined UCHealth in 2019 and has also worked in the Poudre Valley Hospital progressive care unit, as well as in critical care at UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies. She’s served as a permanent charge nurse on the ICU for three years.
On the night shift, Olson works with many colleagues who are early in their careers and were in nursing school during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said the keepsakes offer a meaningful example of the caring relationships that are central to nursing.
“Having something like that to bring the compassion of nursing to young nurses is great,” she said.