Nurses do amazing things everyday, yet they are often the unsung heroes of healthcare.
Sarah Bush Lincoln is excited to shine a spotlight on the contributions and sacrifices of its nurses by becoming a DAISY Award hospital partner. The DAISY Award is a nationwide program that rewards and celebrates the extraordinary clinical skill and compassionate care delivered by nurses every day.
A special celebration to launch the program, and announce its first DAISY Award recipient, is planned for 11 am Thursday, July 14, in Sarah Bush Lincoln’s lobby, Entrance A. The public is invited and light refreshments will be served.
“Kindness, respect and compassion are at the heart of what our nurses do every day, so we are proud to bring the DAISY Award to Sarah Bush Lincoln to honor our nurses,” SBL Vice President Patient Care Continuum & Chief Nursing Officer Lisa Woodward said. “We have so many nurses who exemplify our mission of providing exceptional care to all and we’d like to involve the community in recognizing these special nurses.’’
Patients, visitors, nurses, physicians and other employees may nominate a deserving nurse for The Daisy Award and a nurse will be selected by SBL’s DAISY committee every month to received this special honor.
The DAISY Award was established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, who died at 33 of complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a little known but not uncommon auto-immune disease. (DAISY is an acronym for diseases attacking the immune system.) The care Patrick and his family received from nurses while he was ill inspired this unique means of thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and families.
Each DAISY honoree will be recognized with a ceremony in her/his nursing unit and will receive a certificate, a DAISY Award pin, and a stone sculpture titled “A Healer’s Touch,” hand-carved by artists of the Shona Tribe in Africa. A unique addition to the ceremony is the serving of Cinnabon® cinnamon rolls. This results from a day while Patrick was in the hospital, and he asked his family to bring him and all the nurses in his unit Cinnabon® cinnamon rolls. With the help of Cinnabon’s parent company, FOCUS Brands, The DAISY Foundation carries on this tradition by serving cinnamon rolls to all the nurses in the award recipient’s unit in thanks for everything they do for their patients and families.
The DAISY Foundation established the program in 1999 and today, there are more than 2,000 healthcare facilities in all 50 states and 14 other countries committed to honoring nurses with The DAISY Award.
Patients, visitors, nurses, physician, and hospital staff members can nominate a deserving nurse by completing the nomination form, located at www.sarahbush.org and at all SBL clinics and on patient floors. The forms can be submitted to any Sarah Bush Lincoln staff member, or sent via email to daisy@sblhs.org or mail to Sarah Bush Lincoln, DAISY Nursing Award, 1000 Health Center Drive, Mattoon, IL 61938. For more information, contact SBL DAISY coordinator, Cynthia Edwards, RN, at (217) 238 -3422 or cedwards@sblhs.org.