Lincolnland Home Care nurse Debra Felter, RN, was honored with the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses at Sarah Bush Lincoln on June 6.
Felter was nominated by Lincolnland Home Care manager Kelley Hennigh for going above and beyond to provide exceptional care to all her patients.
Hennigh wrote in her nomination letter: “Last week, Debra was on-call and she worked numerous hours with a couple of patients not stopping until she got the answers she needed to ease their pain and make them comfortable. Thank you for being a great patient advocate! You ROCK!”
Hennigh shared an incident in which Debra spent more than five hours with someone who was newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer calling numerous doctors, the hospital, and pharmacy to get his pain under control. She spent several more hours at the home of another patient who was having issues with her IV medication on Saturday and again on Sunday. She was able to resolve the issue so the patient received her life-sustaining medication.
Sarah Bush Lincoln has joined more than 2,400 healthcare facilities by becoming a DAISY Award hospital partner. During the award presentation, Felter received a certificate, a DAISY Award pin and a unique, hand-carved serpentine stone sculpture from Zimbabwe, entitled, “A Healer’s Touch.”
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.
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. Nomination forms are 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.