I just wanted to let you know about an ICARE moment exhibited by one of our employees. A patient on 6D was discharged this morning with intentions on riding the DAV van back to Fort Smith. The patient called down to transportation earlier this morning to ensure that she was indeed on the list to ride. She was in fact on the list. About 1100, she had her discharge papers and proceeded down to catch the DAV van only to find out that the driver of that van had not arrived for the day and there would not be another van until Monday.
The 6D charge nurse called me and asked if I could help this patient get back home. The social worker assigned to this patient was in a meeting and was not at her desk. I thought, what can I do to help this patient. I called nurse Terry Minton and told him what was going on. He told me that he needed to make some phone calls and he would call me back. He called me back and told me that he was going to pick up a van from Little Rock to get the patient back to Fort Smith. I stated that I was so happy that he had found someone to take her. He told me that he had not found anyone because everyone was busy, so he would be taking the patient back himself. I said to him, "Wow, you are really going to do that?". He answered, "Yes, I am! There is no one else to get her back". He told me that he would call me back once he was back here with the van so that I could bring the patient down.
When I went to the 6D Day Room to speak with the patient about the plan, she was very taken aback that someone would do that for her. She was very appreciative and grateful for Terry going out of his way for her. When he returned with the van, I walked the patient down to the green atrium, he introduced himself, and she thanked him for taking her back to Fort Smith.
I just wanted to let you know that in the 6 years that I have known Terry he has always exhibited exemplary service to and for the Veterans. I have witnessed him go above and beyond in different situations, as in the above paragraph, in order to get the task accomplished.
A patient had a procedure with sedation and received bad news. The patient's driver, his sister, was trying to keep it all together with the news and then said she had more bad news. She had a flat tire in the parking lot. We told her that we could get it taken care of for her. We attempted to call other services for help and were unable to get help for her and her brother. Another nurse contacted Terry Minton to see if he knew who we could call for help. Our fear was, the patient who had been heavily sedated would change the tire for his sister. Terry came to the unit himself, took the patient out with his sister, and changed her tire for her. He gave her numbers to call if she had any problems driving back to Hot Springs.
Terry went above and beyond to assure the veteran did not attempt to change the tire himself and assure they were able to return home to Hot Springs safely. It was more than likely outside Terry's scope of practice and maybe against policy, but his concern was for the veteran and his sister. Putting them first is excellent patient care and customer service.
Once again, Terry Minton has come to our rescue. We had a Veteran from Bentonville. Fayetteville VA paid for him to come here. The van was not running today and the family could not pick the Veteran up. Once again, Terry worked with us on this and arranged to have one of the VA drivers take him home on a day when no one else could.