I would like to nominate Beth Nevil for the Daisy Award for her caring, compassionate care of a patient. The patient had serious chronic illness, including Vit D deficiency which had contributed to multiple bone fractures in her history. She was seen for a lower extremity fracture yesterday and dispositioned to go home by the ED physician. Along with all of her medical problems, she also had social issues which included limited resources at home. Apparently, she had recently moved to Charlotte with her husband, who recently got a new job in Philadelphia and wasn’t at home to help care for her. She normally uses a walker and the lower extremity injury made it impossible for her to use her walker and “get around”. The patient told Beth that she didn’t know anyone in Charlotte to help her. Beth utilized all the possible resource that she had, including social work , physical therapy, and even tried to have the patient get admitted, but eventually had to send the patient home, against Beth’s wishes, because the patient didn’t meet criteria for admission by CHG. Beth arranged for Medic to take the patient home and stayed over for 1 ½ hours to ensure the patient was taken care of until she left.
Beth was so concerned about the patient, that the next morning, she discussed her concerns with me about the whole situation and her frustration to not being able to help the patient any more than she could. I offered to call the patient to see how she was and utilize e more resource if needed. When I called the patient to she how she was, the patient felt better, had gotten a home health visit providing her a wheelchair and bedside toilet the night before , due to Beth’s persistence for her safety. The patient told me multiple times how compassionate and caring Beth was, even though everyone else was trying to send her home. She stated that she and Beth were both frustrated that she couldn’t get admitted to the hospital, but that Beth went over and beyond and was “the most caring and compassionate nurse” she had ever had and took the time to try to find resources for her along with caring for her other patients. ED nurses rarely get the opportunity to spend much time with our patients, due to the environment of the ED. It was an extremely high volume, busy day and Beth demonstrated extraordinarily compassionate care with this patient and the patient wanted to make sure Beth was recognized for the care she received.