About Kali Dayton
Kali Dayton, DNP, AGACNP, is a critical care nurse practitioner, host of the Walking Home From The ICU and Walking You Through The ICU podcasts, and critical care outcomes consultant. She is dedicated to creating Awake and Walking ICUs by ensuring ICU sedation and mobility practices are aligned with current research. She works with ICU teams internationally to transform patient outcomes through early mobility and management of delirium in the ICU.
Kali’s Story
Starting her nursing career in an Awake and Walking ICU, and then being exposed to how things are typically done in intensive care units as a travel nurse, Kali Dayton has witnessed some of the best and worst outcomes for patients on ventilators in the ICU.
This opened her eyes to the harm being caused by standard ICU sedation and mobility practices, and she knew she had to do something about it. From this point forward, several experiences seemed to be pushing Kali further in this direction, filling her with an even greater sense of urgency.
While she was studying for her doctorate of acute care nursing practice, the latest research on ICU sedation and mobility was conspicuously absent from the curriculum. When she tried to suggest taking intubated patients off of sedation, her colleagues looked at her like she was crazy. She even met a man on a flight who broke down in tears explaining the trauma and damage he experienced from being sedated in the ICU.
So, after digging into the scientific literature and becoming even more aware of the ICU community’s ignorance of modern evidence-based practices for sedation, mobility, and the management of delirium in the ICU, she decided to start a podcast to share information and spread awareness by interviewing clinicians and ICU survivors.
That decision has led Kali on a journey to where she is now – continuing to affect positive change in the ICU community and working with ICU teams around the world to improve patient outcomes by modernizing standard ICU practices.
Her mission is to ensure every ICU clinician understands the why and how of mastering the ABCDEF Bundle.
Our Team
Heidi Engel
Heidi has been a physical therapist for 36 years and works at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. She has worked in the ICU at UCSF since October 2008, and over the course of her career has worked in every Acute Care PT service, as well as Outpatients and Home Health settings.
She received the UCSF Outstanding Colleague of Nursing Award in 2012, a Presidential Citation from the Society of Critical Care Medicine in 2013, and the American Physical Therapy Association Jack Walker Award for Research Excellence in 2014.
She currently teaches at UCSF, conducts research into ICU Rehabilitation, has given over 100 presentations outside of UCSF, and is an author on 14 peer-reviewed publications. She is also a founding member of the Society of Critical Care Medicine ICU Liberation campaign.
Jenna Hightower
Jenna is an American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties certified Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Clinical Specialist and Critical Care Physical Therapist who specializes in early mobility in the ICU, specifically for patients on mechanical circulatory support such as ECMO, IABP, Impella, and LVAD, as well as various forms of mechanical ventilation. She works with populations suffering from end organ failure and/or various forms of shock requiring invasive support and has a special passion for pre and post heart and lung transplant patients.
Critical care knowledge and skills are not offered to physical therapy candidates in school, so it is a career goal of Jenna’s to use her unique specialty to help this field of physical therapy grow. She enjoys teaching these skills to other clinicians to assist them in practicing at the top of their license and help them to create the best outcomes for their patients in the ICU.
She is especially interested in working to further research on mobilizing patients who are supported on various forms of mechanical circulatory support. She has given several guest lectures for entry-level DPT programs, spoken at national level conferences, produced webinars for various healthcare institutions and has been featured in publications aimed at helping to improve ICU skill development for entry level physical therapists and future specialist candidates.
Briana Elson, OTR/L, BCPR, CBIS
Briana is AOTA fellowship-trained in Neurologic Occupational Therapy from Brooks Rehabilitation.
She received her Master of Science in Occupational Therapy at Thomas Jefferson University in 2015 and has experience in acute care, ICU, skilled nursing, and inpatient rehabilitation settings as both full-time staff and a travel occupational therapist.
Briana has also received her Board Certification in Physical Rehabilitation (BCPR) through AOTA and is a Certified Brain Injury Specialist (CBIS) through the Brain Injury Association of America. In addition to her time as contributing faculty at The University of St. Augustine, Briana continues to practice in acute care, ICU, and inpatient neurorehabilitation.
Emily Johnson, RRT
Emily is a Registered Respiratory Therapist currently working at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver, Colorado. As an early mobility champion, she has seen the power of interdisciplinary collaboration and is passionate about harm reduction in critical care.
She is a leader in using evidence-based guidelines to create and maintain positive culture change in today’s critical care landscape.
Emily advocates for her profession in all spaces and dreams of inspiring respiratory therapists to understand the essential role they play in taking care of patients across the healthcare continuum.
Louise Bezdjian, ACNP
Louise is a nurse practitioner and one of the founders of the original Awake and Walking ICU.
She has dedicated 30 years of her career to creating world-renowned sedation and mobility practices and is an expert in delirium and ICU-acquired weakness prevention and treatment.
Louise has trained multiple generations of clinicians and provided Awake and Walking ICU care to innumerable patients for three decades.
Phillip Gonzalez, MOT, OTR/L, BCPR
Phillip is a Critical Care Occupational Therapist and a graduate of Texas Tech University Health Science Center who holds a Master’s in Occupational Therapy. He is AOTS Board Certified in physical rehabilitation and prides himself on pushing the boundaries of what an OT’s role is in the ICU.
He has a special passion for rehab in the CVICU, neuro-ICU, and trauma-ICU, specifically working with poly-traumatic injuries, SCIs, TBIs, pre/post heart and lung transplants, and patients on ECMO and other forms of mechanical circulatory support to help initiate rehab and progress them along the continuum of care.
As an advocate for the role of OTs in critical care, it is a career goal of his to continue to expand OTs’ foundational knowledge in critical care medicine and empower them to be better advocates for their profession, their patients, and their careers.
Before Kali, our hospital struggled with overly-sedated patients and lack of early mobility. Despite multiple efforts to change the culture, we were at a standstill. In one hour, Kali was able to ignite a flurry of conversations regarding her experience with the Awake and Walking ICU and this immediately led to a change in clinical practice.
Patients with less sedation and other neurotoxic medications are spending fewer days on the ventilator. If you are considering starting an ICU early mobility program at your hospital, your first step needs to be to consult with Kali and absorb as much information as you can!
Matthew McClain, DPT
Florida, USA
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