Ms. Simms received nominations from the Anesthesia Team and the Outpatient Palliative Care team. The anesthesia team notes that Ms. Simms is an asset to our team by going above and beyond in many different ways. She has taken on an active role with the moderate sedation committee for the Medical Center. Ms. Simms is highly regarded by anesthesia providers for her commitment to the moderate sedation committee and her exceptional care of our veterans. She is not only a great resource to the PACU but also an invaluable asset to the organization due to her vast knowledge of peri-anesthesia nursing.

While assigned to the Outpatient Palliative Care Clinic Ms. Simms made a substantial contribution to the clinic's performance. The Outpatient Palliative Care Clinic deals with patients who are very ill, approaching end of life, and dealing with grief. She was excellent in approaching each of these patients with sensitivity and kindness! Ms. Simms has participated in patient video appointments assisting in counseling families and patients approaching end of life. Moreover, she has assisted in triage calls from patients about symptoms and provided guidance when we have been busy with appointments. She took the lead on a QI project that our clinic has intended to start for more than a year on identifying and improving access to Palliative medicine for high healthcare-needs patients. Her procedural and peri-op knowledge has helped assisting in making recommendations to patients for palliative interventions. She has significantly decreased our no-show rate by calling patients in advance, asking about symptoms, and questions they wanted to address during their scheduled appointment. Before she joined our clinic, our no-show rate was high, and we lost many patients to follow-up.

Our patients have told us during their appointments that they appreciated the calls from Ms. Simms and enjoyed speaking with her. She is intelligent, a quick learner, inquisitive, and a great problem-solver. We so appreciate all her work in caring for our sickest veterans. We would love for her to be a permanent addition to our clinic staff, but understand that this may not be possible. Just wanted to let you know how thankful we are to have worked with her and what a great asset she is to the VA and displays the ICARE values.