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The Wrap - World Delirium Awareness Day 2026

·33 min·2 clips

Delirium is a medical emergency, not a benign confusion problem.

The RAP Employee Podcast marks the fifth anniversary of World Delirium Awareness Day at Michigan Medicine. Jeremy Fallis and Lilia Simek host the conversation from the Department of Communication. They open by asking each guest to introduce themselves and share one thing that feels like spring to them. Lakeisha Benn describes her work as a clinical nurse specialist on Medicine Unit 6A, her fellowship leadership, and her role chairing the Delirium Prevention Committee. Nicole Morfis talks about her staff nursing work on 6C in MedSurge and her committee involvement. Those introductions keep the episode anchored in the people doing the work. From there, the conversation turns to how delirium prevention became a shared effort across the health system. The rounding cart comes up as one of the clearest examples. It is stocked with resources, snacks, activities, and swag. The team says those small touches gave people a reason to stop, come over, and pay attention. T-shirts became part of the draw too. Nurses who took part in rounding could enter a drawing for one, which made the whole thing feel a little more visible and a lot less stiff. The point was not novelty for its own sake. It was about giving staff a reason to learn the message and remember it later. The guests explain that the effort started on one unit and then kept spreading. Emergency department staff got involved after Stacey Blackburn took a detour into the ED and found people eager to be included in future rounding. That mattered because the ED often holds patients for long stretches while they wait for a bed, and the guests note that those conditions can raise delirium risk when patients are isolated or missing familiar comforts like windows or a private bathroom. The ED team wanted the education because the risk showed up in daily practice. The episode also covers the move into Mott Children's Hospital. That expansion made the awareness work system-wide. The tone stays warm and grounded throughout. It sounds like colleagues talking through a practical project they know well and care about. The conversation never tries to inflate the moment. It simply follows the work, step by step, and lets the guests explain how prevention culture gets built through repeated actions, shared ownership, and follow-through.

As heard by us

A practical look at how delirium prevention becomes everyday hospital work.

Michigan Medicine uses this episode to reflect on the fifth anniversary of World Delirium Awareness Day and show how prevention work actually runs inside a hospital. Nurses, physicians, committee members, and bedside rounding all come into view without much ceremony.

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See how Michigan Medicine built World Delirium Awareness Day into a system-wide effort.

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