Marie M Sparks, ADN, RN

When caring for a hard-of-hearing patient with stroke as a primary diagnosis, Marie identified that there is no National Institute of Health Stroke Scale validated for American Sign Language (ASL). Marie took it upon herself to reach out to both the NIH and BlueCloudX leadership to identify this gap and ask what she could do to help develop a validated version of the NIH stroke scale for this population. Marie had success with the BlueCloudX leadership, and BlueCloud is now engaging with the NIH to develop a validated NIH stroke scale for American Sign Language. Marie's identification of a need and her dogged pursuit of improving stroke care have the potential to benefit not only the patients of New Mexico but also the hard-of-hearing stroke patient population globally. Marie took on this project without any prompting or directive; she simply identified a need and did what she could to address it. This is an excellent example of what it means to be a nurse in the modern environment. We are very fortunate to have Marie as a member of our team, and we appreciate her compassion and dedication to her profession.