COMPASSION Omar quickly attends to and alerts me of patients who are in distress, have respiratory instability, those in pain and with high fever so that we can attend to them promptly. Since working at Parkland the last 3 years, Omar has been one of the nursing staff most eager to participate in codes for pediatrics, adult and geriatrics and often helps with stabilizing ill patients and will remain attentive to their needs until all care is completed.
INTEGRITY Omar Torres can be trusted to follow through with contacting patients- e.g., he makes sure newborn mothers are called if they miss their appointments for all 3 pediatric suites without being told, making sure their vaccines are up to date, informing patients of needed tests and follow up. In addition Omar has initiative when it comes to screening patients. Omar will call to remind of appointments those he has seen have missed many appointments.
Omar will stay late if ill patients are causing us to run late on our schedule before lunch or before end of shift and he never complains. He learns quickly and is eager to learn new things about disease states and remembers and applies his learning to future work challenges.
Omar understands the importance of the Population Health Balanced score card measures for pediatrics and keeps them on his mind throughout the work day.
RESPECT Omar is fair to all employees and patients no matter what their socioeconomic background is. He is tender with infants, sick adults, the elderly and tries to assist all patients when Omar sees they need help he will personally take patients to areas they need to go to in the clinic. Although Omar is mainly a pediatric nurse, he never complains if he is pulled to work in a non-pediatric area in our health center.
Omar comes to work every day with a positive attitude, is not negative and does not hold grudges with those who have wronged him. Omar values the worth in all employees and is not quick to judge nor form negative opinions of patients nor employees.
COLLABORATION Omar is happy to help other providers in our other pediatric suites and will contact their patients and schedule appointments for them without being told. He has on many occasions given vaccines to patients who do not have appointments or have arrived at the wrong office for vaccines. Omar explains well to patients the subtle differences with processes between the 3 pediatric suites or when their process changes without antagonizing them.
Omar helps to update the problem list in the EMR to help me provide the best and safest service and he will see through particular problems with scheduling or other follow up to the end until it is resolved.
Omar appropriately and promptly refers patients to our pediatric case management social worker and works with chronically ill patients' home health nurses and DME companies to provide the services they need
LEADERSHIP Omar takes the lead and demonstrates great managerial qualities. He readily takes on and volunteers for tasks that our previous lead pediatric nurse was responsible for. Omar is humble and constantly tries to find ways to value fellow employees, whether it is a small gift or saying a kind word of encouragement. Omar has an excellent relationship with school nurses in helping us obtain vaccine records to update our pediatric patients charts to make sure they have accurate records and do not lack vaccines.
EXCELLENCE Omar provides excellent service recovery when patients are angry or make complaints. He tries to make sure each patient's visit is meaningful by informing them of previous results and educates them on the trends in lab results and expected further tests that I typically order. Omar will call back patients and do post-visit planning many times without being directed or to clarify anything that I may point out to him. He makes sure to educate patients on importance of taking medications as prescribed, importance of keeping follow up appoints here and with subspecialists to avoid disease states from progressing to a worse state. Omar gently reminds fellow employees of importance of proper hand hygiene. He is extremely consistent with 2 patient identifiers and specimen labeling procedures
STEWARDSHIP Omar often will provide parents with low cost community options to get all of their health care needs met if Parkland is not able to provide them. He helps patients to get the most efficient service each time they come for a visit, eg;. making sure every mother of newborn knows about WIC and the gives them contact numbers as well as provides information on other community services consistently like dental and eye services. Omar makes sure that every child birth through 6 years receives a reach out a read book and organizes the program at our site.
Omar has freed me up to do my job much better as a physician. They like his attitude and professionalism and he always makes patients feel welcome. I have worked for Parkland for 20 years and it is only the last 3 years while working with him that I feel like I have truly had a great clinical team relationship. I see that in his work he displays excellent consistent clinical support, is a true physician extender and epitomizes what physicians want in clinical support staff. What astounds me is that every day he is eager to work and comes energetic, on time and is so consistent. His work ethic needs to be copied and used as an example for all Parkland nursing staff (LVN or RN) and encouraged in all clinical support staff.
Omar is very deserving of the DAISY Award because he was instrumental in the success of Population Health Pre-visit Planning adolescent PI Project at Southeast. He also was one of the two nurses that made our DSHS audit in Population Health for Southeast Dallas COPC that occurred October 2015 have a successful outcome.
Patients remember his name and have a lot of confidence and trust in what Omar teaches them, the nursing care he provides and that he will do what he says and follow through in his work. They like his attitude and professionalism and he always makes patients feel welcome.
Omar makes sure the Children's Medical Center Dallas Pediatric Residents and UTSW Family Practice residents are oriented well to our flow and clinic processes these are all the reasons why Omar is deserving of the DAISY Award.