Crouse Pride for our June 2021 DAISY Nursing Excellence Award Recipients

The DAISY Award is an international program that rewards and celebrates the extraordinary compassionate and skillful care given by nurses every day. Crouse Health is proud to be a DAISY Award Partner, recognizing our deserving nurses with this special honor.  These nurses consistently demonstrate excellence through their clinical expertise and extraordinary compassionate care, and are recognized as outstanding role models in our nursing community. Congratulations and thank you to our June 2021 DAISY award recipients!

DAISY Award Recipients: Education and Professional Practice Team and Clinical Nurse Specialists

Education and Professional Practice
Nominated by Amy Szczesniak, MS, RN, CPXP
“I would like to nominate the Education and Professional Development Department for the DAISY Team Award. This unique department staffed, with a variety of professionals, exemplifies teamwork in everything they do, and they stepped outside their normal roles, shifts, and comfort zones to help when the pandemic hit Crouse Health. Every day this team was called upon to do something different to help their clinical colleagues; whether this was providing on-the-spot education, developing computer based learning modules, setting up supplies for a new COVID unit, passing medications and answering lights throughout the organization and on COVID units. They did this all while new information about COVID-19 brought what seemed to be hour-by-hour changes to the education. Staff in this department picked up extra shifts, flexed their schedules to be present on the clinical units during normal business hours, and stretched themselves to teach additional classes to be compliant with the NYS rules to keep the classrooms and our colleagues safe. Every staff member in this department shifted their work to best support what Crouse Health needed as the pandemic spread through our hospital and our community. In times of great stress you often see teams fall apart, or grow stronger; it was a privilege to see a department ban together to support and model the mission, vision and values of Crouse Health without hesitation.”

Clinical Nurse Specialists
Nominated by Minnie Yao, RN
“The Clinical Nurse Specialist team has been very proactive and engaged in terms of continuous quality improvement, addressing clinical issues, providing support and morale to the staff, encouraging participation and upholding Crouse’s mission, vision and values. They have been pursuing ideals despite obstacles and they have provided solid support to the clinical units. Their continued work in their expertise rolled out in the clinical units serves as a vehicle for excellence in Crouse culture and patient care. They are a light to nurses whenever issues arise as they most often provide great answers that helps lighten staff situations. They are a team that we look up to and emulate, and we are so happy that they are around to always provide great assistance.”

DAISY Nurse Leader Award Recipient
Donnette Damon, RN – Charge Nurse at Madison Irving Surgery Center
Nominated by Christiana Marotti, RN – Nursing Colleague at MISC

“Donnette Damon (center, holding award) is the charge nurse at Madison Irving Surgery Center (MISC), and she is a fantastic example of an exceptional nurse leader. I started working at MISC in October 2020, which was my first time working in an OR setting, and she took me under her wing and went above and beyond to make me comfortable in this new position. Donnette truly models Crouse’s mission, vision, and values through her work every day. She cares deeply for the safety and well-being of the patients, and her fellow staff. I cannot count the amount of times I have come out of my room in a panic looking for something and she instantly stopped what she was doing to assist me. She has created a very trusting environment that promotes great teamwork in the OR, resulting in positive patient outcomes. She is also a great advocate for the patients and her staff, and always handles difficult situations with great professionalism. She is a great resource for policies, and ensures things are done the right way, which is not always the easy way. She encourages her staff to act with compassion and respect in all settings. She motivates me to be better and learn more every day to produce better outcomes for my patients. I have learned so much about what it means to be a leader from watching her, and so many people have benefitted from her being in this position. She deserves to be recognized for all her hard work and dedication to Crouse.”

>> Define your nursing practice at Crouse and work with amazing colleagues like these!

>> Learn more and nominate a Crouse nurse for a DAISY Award

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