Gerald Robinson, nominator (L) and Rita Vallazza, DAISY Award winner (R)
OSF Saint Francis Medical Center is pleased to announce the most recent winner of the DAISY Award, which recognizes outstanding nursing care. Winners are nominated by patients and their families.

The May 2012 DAISY Award was presented to Rita Vallazza of Toluca. She works on 5000 (Heart floor) was nominated by the husband of a patient.

Her nomination reads: “It being Easter Sunday, neither of us thought my wife would get her angiogram done. My wife called and said they would do the procedure in an hour. I was there in 45 minutes and she had been taken already. I know the procedure is relatively safe but I wanted to be there for her before she went in. Because I was not there I was rather upset. Rita offered to walk me down to the area where the angiograms are done. The lights were off and no one was there. I must admit that I started crying because I was too late to see my wife. Rita, although her shift was over, stayed with me until I was called and told that everything was fine. She walked with me back upstairs and got me a soda for my wait to see my wife. I really appreciated her empathy and the fact that she stayed with me rather than going home to her family on Easter morning.”

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.