Our People - SSM Health Care

The Safety Champion
Growing up, Debbye Luetkemeyer was encouraged by her parents
to take pride in whatever job she took on, to finish what she started
and to do her very best at everything. And they’d ask her, at the
end of the day, a simple question.
“It’s a question I ask my children every day,” said the mother
of four, ages six through 29. “‘Did you do your personal best’
whenever they’re turning something in.”
Luetkemeyer still lives that work ethic. But her best these days
revolves around doing what’s best, safest for patients and employees
of SSM Health Care. When SSMHC – St. Louis reorganized
in 2008, Luetkemeyer’s responsibilities expanded, along with a job
title that could clutter any business card: Corporate Responsibility
Program Contact and Regulatory Coordinator, South Operating
Group, SSM Health Care – St. Louis.
“I am filling in many gaps you might say,” she said, laughing.
Luetkemeyer typically arrives at her desk at 6:30 a.m. with a
singular purpose: making sure patients are safe when they come
to SSM hospitals for care. She works with hospitals to ensure
they are complying with state and federal regulations and Joint
Commission standards for patient safety. But, at SSM, the standard
is even higher, she said:
“Exceptional health care.”
At SSM, safety is one of the
fundamental ways we measure
exceptional patient care. To help
achieve that goal, Luetkemeyer
can be found on some days listening
to patients talk about
how their hospital visits might
have been better. Other days,
she collaborates with caregivers
on how to make sure nothing
happens to patients outside
their normal courses of care.
Doing her best to help keep
patients safe excites Luetkemeyer.
“It’s why I get up every
morning and come to work,”
she said. “I don’t do any of
this by myself. I’m one of
many. We all work together
to make it happen.”
Debbye Luetkemeyer
The “Accidental” Nurse
Nursing has been Debbie Coy’s passion for 14 years. But Coy
didn’t enter the profession like most people.
“I really only became a nurse because I happened to go with my
friend to take the nursing school entrance test,” said Coy, a licensed
practical nurse at St. Anthony South in Oklahoma City. “She
Debbie Coy
didn’t want to go alone, so I went with her, took the test and I
was accepted.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
Even before that fateful day, Coy was no stranger to health
care. At age 17, she began working in a hospital as a tech. She
later moved on to work at a nursing home and that’s where she
found her true calling.
“I love geriatrics, especially Alzheimer’s patients,”
Coy said. “People tell me I have the
‘Alzheimer’s aura’, because I can really relate to
those patients — especially the ones that have a little
spunk to them.
“Many of my patients are in their 70s, 80s or
older and may not have much time left, so I want
to make sure their last days are going to be happy
ones,” she said. “Going that extra little step is so
important. Taking care of them while they are here
makes me feel good.”
Coy said it is sometimes sad to see her patients’
conditions worsen due to their Alzheimer’s. She
takes care of each one as if they were a friend. “I
can spend hours with an Alzheimer’s patient, just
talking with them or walking around with them,”
she said.
So what is her secret to working with her patients
Ice cream.
“When my patients get a little irritated or
confused, a bowl of ice cream goes a long way,”
she said.
Go to www.ssmpeople.com to watch Our People.
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