The H6 team members always work incredibly hard to provide exceptional care for our patients but this past year they showed amazing resilience and teamwork to care for one very special patient. We had a long-term multi-visceral transplant patient who faced many personal challenges and required extra levels of patience, time, courage, and skill to care for her. The staff worked together as one united team, shift after shift for over a year, to ensure this patient had the care she deserved and required. This patient faced many challenges but despite that, the staff did everything they could to provide the high-quality holistic care that Henry Ford is known for.

This patient, besides her complex medical problems, was so lonely crying out to just have someone there in the room with her. There were countless times that the staff (Nurses and Nursing assistants) could be found inside the patient’s room dancing for the patient to her favorite music. The staff cooked special meals for this patient and brought them in for her, just to provide her with a taste of home. Treats from the H6 candy bin or trips downstairs for treats were made by so many people just to try and cheer up this patient. The entire team from Nursing, nurse assistants, housekeepers, case managers, and more would rotate sitting with the patient or just outside her room talking to her. Nursing staff would sit right at her door and chart in order to allow her to see someone close to provide some companionship this patient longed for especially when visitor restrictions were in place. The leadership of the unit went above and beyond to ensure that the patient’s family was provided with special accommodations to allow for limited visitation, despite hospital restrictions related to COVID. Countless hours of phone calls updating family and helping the patient FaceTime friends and family. The staff celebrated with the patient and family by having a big birthday party as well as a party for her one-year transplant anniversary.

The staff dedicated so much emotional and physical energy to this patient to provide care to her, despite the battles this patient was constantly fighting. Although this patient could be challenging to care for, the staff always gave 100% to her and did their best to provide exceptional care during their shift. The patient was finally discharged to the next level of care in late 2021. This is only one example of the exceptional care, dedication, devotion, and compassion that the H6 Nursing team displays on a daily basis for their patients.

One patient even said recently on a return stay after transplant that she was here at the hospital for almost 60 days after transplant and very sick but when she left here she felt like she was leaving part of her family behind and when she returned for this visit she felt so loved by the staff that they remembered her name, they welcomed her, they sat and talk to her about how her life has been since she left the first time. This team of men and women are truly dedicated to every patient, family, and team member here at Henry Ford Hospital and they recognize that it is a privilege to be a part of each person’s journey.