September Employee of the Month – Laura White

Published October 12, 2026

We are pleased to announce that our September 2026 Employee of the Month is Laura White, Performance Excellence Engineer with the Performance Excellence department. The nomination highlights a very high level of dedication to our staff and our community through expert level analysis and education – showcasing just how deserving Laura is of this award.

“Laura is an expert in the Sepsis pathway; she ensures she is up to date on any upcoming changes and prepares our teams for any required workflow or documentation refinements. Laura’s passion to improve the quality and safety of care for MCH patients is evident in her ongoing commitment to provide meaningful, concurrent feedback and support to clinical teams providing sepsis care. She leads the Sepsis Steering Team, ensuring it is inclusive of all impacted departments and engages the team, including providers, with deep dives of failed cases. Laura works closely with the ED leadership team, including Dr. Wasson, to provide meaningful data of successes and opportunities by provider. She presents an hour of education to new providers and receives positive feedback regarding her content and delivery. Due to her diligence, attention to detail and drive for excellence, Laura has a great track record in getting failed cases overturned, impacting our performance favorably! Here are some examples (there are many more!): Laura challenged severe sepsis time on this case based on documentation by the Radiologist. As a result, the case was excluded from the metric denominator in Premier. Mar25 rate has been updated from 16/22=73% to 16/21=76%. Challenged this fallout for Antibiotic Delay and Qcentrix agreed improving our May 2026 SEP-1 Bundle Rate from 58% (15/26) to 62% (16/26). Laura challenged this SEP-1 fallout for Repeat Lactate collection; she found the record provided evidence of an attempt to collect the 2nd lactic acid order meeting specification to pass the SEP-1 Bundle, despite no repeat result value. The case is overturned from Fail to Pass in Premier for CMS/TJC submission. This increases our May 2026 performance from 62% (below national average) to 65% (above national average). Laura challenged final coding of neonatal sepsis (case from Feb 26) and a missed newborn withdrawal diagnosis linked to maternal drug use that excluded the case from the TJC Unexpected Complications in Term Newborns. She challenged final coding of the claim with sepsis omitted on the Death Note and based on critical care documentation. Coding and CDI agreed with opportunities based on their guidelines and agreed that there should have been real-time clarification and sepsis diagnosis should be removed from the claim. Case was omitted in Premier with a new case abstracted in its place which passed the SEP-1 Bundle. SEP-1 Bundle rate for Mar 2026 is 22/32= 69%. Laura’s case reviews changed MCBG’s March 2026 SEP-1 rate from 62.5% to 69%. She successfully challenged and overturned a fallout for Initial Lactate which changed our Feb 2026 rate from 67.8% to 70.3% meeting our Sepsis Steering Committee internal goal and exceeding national average (64%). Laura also tracks Sepis performance in our Rural Hospitals and collaborates with their clinical leads on fall-outs. She recently provided in person education at MCA which was well-received. In addition, Laura was responsible for making the Walter Klewers Sepsis monitoring tool operational, improving the ability to monitor cases real-time, impacting performance favorably. As this product was sunsetted by the manufacturer, Laura has been integral in conversations about workflows to bridge the gap until we go live w/Epic. She is intimately involved in the workgroup for Epic workflow design, including being an advocate for pediatric sepsis monitoring. She is proactive in planning for Sepsis Awareness month; this year she worked with Education to plan a Sepsis Patient Simulation Event. Laura initiated measuring the Sep-1 Hour-1 Bundle compliance before it is required reporting; this enables us to be proactive in improving processes. She is also passionate about professional growth, as demonstrated by obtaining her CPHQ and completing MCH’s first leadership cohort. With Laura’s leadership, MCH has outperformed national average for two consecutive years, 2024 & 2025; current performance for 2026 is also outperforming national benchmark! This work has impacted patient safety in many ways, including improved mortality related to sepsis by double digit percentage!“