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Kristie Porter, OT

The Walking Home From The ICU podcast has been transformational in helping to change the culture in the small community ICU where I work. I am an occupational therapist and have wanted to implement early mobility in our facility for several years now. It wasn’t until I started listening to this podcast that this “want” became more than that. It became a “must.”

The podcast has made it so easy to share the passion I have gained. The stories of the patients and the knowledge of practitioners sharing their clinical practice advice are so valuable.

Kali Dayton has shared with our team her knowledge through a video format as well. She was able to answer nursing related questions that I, as an OT, haven’t been able to answer. She is professional and willing to share her knowledge and passion in order to make changes in the ICU community around the world.

She is inspiring and gives me the courage to keep pressing on to make these best practices a reality in my community.

About the Author, 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.

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As an RN in the Medical-Surgical ICU at the hospital I work at, I began my interest in ICU Liberation through an Evidence-Based Practice project.

While I was initially grabbed by what the literature has to say about over-sedation and patient outcomes, it wasn’t until I discovered Kali’s Walking Home From The ICU podcast that a culture of sedationless ICU care sounded tangible. The group I worked with on the project was both inspired, devastated, and intrigued by the stories Kali illuminates on the podcast, and we were able to bring her to our hospital for a virtual Zoom Webinar, where she presented on the practices in the Awake and Walking ICU.

This webinar was an incredible way to draw attention toward this necessary culture shift as Kali shared stories of patients awake and mobile in the ICU despite the complexity of their illness. The webinar inspired our final draft for the new practice guideline on analgesia and sedation management in the ICU, and since then we have seen intubated COVID patients playing tic tac toe on the door with staff members on the other side, taking laps around the unit, performing their own oral care using a hand mirror, and most importantly, keeping their autonomy and integrity while fighting to leave the ICU to resume the life they had before coming in.

Nora Raher, BSN, RN, MSICU
Virginia, USA

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