Brandi Buchanan, RN, was honored with the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses at Sarah Bush Lincoln on July 23.
Buchanan was nominated for her dedication and patient advocacy. Her nominator wrote in part:
“I am nominating Brandi for living every one of Sarah Bush Lincoln’s Standards of Performance. She dedicates 110 percent of herself to her patients every shift. She shows each patient compassion and really takes the time to get to know them. She is recognized regularly in discharge phone calls, which is no surprise with the relationships she creates with her patients. She has been a huge asset to our team – picking up shifts, coming in early, and staying late to care for patients. Even when she’s having a busy day, she still checks with her coworkers to make sure they have support.
Brandi is one of those people who I would want as my nurse. Even though she hasn’t yet been a nurse for a year, she is able to take on challenging patient loads, while consistently giving high quality care. She recently had an event with a patient that proved how competent she is as a nurse. The patient, who was one day post-operation, had an unexpected occurrence. Without causing alarm, she calmly asked for help from the charge nurse and paged the surgeon, who scheduled the patient for surgery the next morning. She also called the surgeon to transfer the patient to CCU for closer monitoring. She is not afraid to advocate for her patients. Brandi is a fantastic nurse and has a way of brightening up rooms with her personality.”
Sarah Bush Lincoln has joined more than 2,700 healthcare facilities by becoming a DAISY Award hospital partner. During the award presentation, Buchanan 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 receive 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, SBL DAISY interim coordinator, Tracey McCord, RN, at (217) 238-4987 or tmccord@sblhs.org.