DAISY Nurse Leader Award—Julie Petray

Julie Petray
Director of Ambulatory Care Nursing at UC Davis Health

The Ambulatory Clinics Division is whole-heartedly nominating Julie Petray for the 2020 DAISY Nurse Leader Award for a great number of reasons. Julie joined our division as the Director of Nursing Practice & Regulatory Compliance in 2017 and immediately, began to make a positive difference in not only the lives of our nursing staff; but in all of those who work with her every day. In addition to taking on this new leadership role, she also earned her Master’s degree during that first year!

Julie has created an infrastructure of resources for our ambulatory nurses and continuously promotes Magnet certification to aid them in supporting the missions of UC Davis Health. To further support her team, she has implemented monthly salon huddles with her nurse managers to ensure that they are all receiving the tools and information they need to do the jobs that they love both safely and efficiently.

Julie revamped the New Employee Orientation to ensure that newly hired staff all receive the tools and support to help them succeed in their new roles with UCDH. She implemented quality initiatives around scope monitoring and processing in the Ambulatory division. She also successfully received a state exception allowing the scope of practice for our medical assistant positions to align both in the onsite and off-site ambulatory care clinics.

Julie is a generous mentor who selflessly provides support and guidance to those whom she mentors. She happily gives her time and encouragement without hesitation and regardless of her other obligations.

“Julie is my mentor and has encouraged me, pushed me for higher education, supported my leadership program, helped me gain new perspectives, and continues to hold me to a high standard to help me continue to succeed on my career path.”

During the current COVID-19 crisis, Julie consistently is among the first to arrive and last to leave the office, making sure that she makes time to submit recognition for those on the front line that are providing excellent patient care and team support. She works diligently to provide consistent direction and communication to the team to ensure that all employees are well informed during these ever-evolving times. Julie is a kind and supportive leader who leads by example with a calm demeanor and is always willing to put her scrubs on and work on the floor alongside the clinic nurses.

Julie has created an atmosphere of thoughtful, caring collaboration for not only the nursing staff; but all clinical staff, including MAs, LVNs and CNIIs, as well as every member of the non-clinical operations staff who she works with every day. She has forged highly productive and valued relationships between the ambulatory division, inpatient nursing, perioperative services, the emergency department, infection prevention services, the medical staff office, the Center for Professional Nursing Practice, employee health, environmental health, and the many other partner units across UC Davis Health. These relationships based in mutual respect benefit our patients and all our staff and providers greatly with optimized care and safety.

For these reasons among many, we respectfully submit this nomination of Julie Petray for the 2020 DAISY Nurse Leader Award

Respectfully,
The Ambulatory Clinics Division