OSF Saint Francis Medical Center is pleased to announce the most recent winners of the DAISY Award, which recognizes outstanding nursing care. Winners are nominated by patients and their families.
The February 2012 DAISY Award was presented to Carol Unes of East Peoria. She is a Surgery nurse and was nominated by a patient.
Her nomination reads: “It has been a long roller coaster ride for me. While being worked up to donate one of my kidneys to my brother, it was discovered that I had a lesion on my lung. The excitement that I was going to help improve the quality of my brother’s life suddenly dipped to an all time low. My emotional ride of ups and downs came with each additional test to determine MY OWN prognosis. MRI, PET scan, oncology doctor to surgeon all took me on a wild ride. The ultimate peak was the day of surgery, and my guardian angel came along with me for the ride. She paved the way making sure that the best people were in the operating room to take care of me. She was in the OR holding my hand and keeping me from losing my grip on the roller coaster ride of emotions. I had so many emotions to deal with and so many “what if’s?” going on in my mind. Carol gave me so much support to minimize my anxiety before I received anesthesia. I could not have done it without her. Thank you. My guardian angel continues to ride with me while I am healing.”
OSF Saint Francis Medical Center is the first hospital in the Midwest to participate in the DAISY Award, a national endeavor. The hospital receives approximately 180 DAISY nominations each month. From those nominations, a panel of five judges from the Professional Nursing Congress Recognition/Communication Committee at OSF Saint Francis chooses a monthly winner. Nurses who win a DAISY Award receive an award pin as well as a hand-carved Shona sculpture from Zimbabwe, an award certificate, a bouquet of daisies, cinnamon powder called “DAISY dust”, and cinnamon rolls for their entire unit.
