Ann Ealy is very deserving of this DAISY Nurse Leader Award. During her leadership journey, Ann has been an inspiration to others as she demonstrates her true passion for enhancing patient care and staff engagement. Ann has successfully completed many projects, workflows, and systems to improve patient care delivery at Kootenai Health. Ann contributed to many successful initiatives. To name a few, these include the implementation of the Rapid Response Team, activation of the labor pool, operationalizing of the bed management system, and improvements efforts related to staffing/scheduling. These have assisted in early interventions on patient decline, decreased wait times for placement and enhancement of patient throughput allowing improved capacity, patient satisfaction, and decrease in wait times. In addition, she has focused efforts in regard to outlying facility partnerships allowing our community to receive care in our region through the success of the Transfer Center. She has also brought creative innovation with celebrating success by using raffles, staffing incentives allowing the joy of nursing to be palpable in the organization. Ann continually invests in others by raising up leaders, helping existing leaders mature, leads by example, and instills trust in her relationships. In addition, at a moment’s notice, I have witnessed Ann cover shifts in her department at all hours of the day to ensure the team and operations of the hospital are maintained. This year Ann had one of her greatest contributions bringing hope, joy, and relief to the COVID pandemic by operationalizing the vaccination clinic for our community. During the time of implementation and optimization, she selected a lead and continuously engaged staff to participate in the efforts successfully vaccinating many community members and employees. Ann is never one to complain or boast about her accomplishments and truly finds meaning in the fruits of her labor. Her work ethic and dedication inspires many to do more and find opportunities for continuous improvement. She never backs down from a challenge and continues to stay engaged despite the many sleepless hours devoted to her work encompassed around improving patient care and staff engagement. Ann is truly an example of an extra special leader in our organization and one truly worthy of this DAISY Nurse Leader Award.


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I've had the pleasure of working with Ann for many years, first as a clinician, and now as a manager/director. I have always known Ann to be very compassionate, relatable, respectful, and highly ethical. Ann looks at you the person, and not just as an employee asset. She is able to make connections with staff of all ages and positions. In this past year, I've watch Ann as she has blossomed from manager into director (and still manager for the rest of 2020). Thanks to the pandemic this newly minted Director was instantly thrust into some very big and unknown shoes. This included having a prominent role in Incident Command, forming, activating and standing up and down a brand-new Labor Pool (twice!), and then creating and coordinating the community Vaccine Clinic. She handled each of these responsibilities, along with her new role with grace and confidence - all the while continuing to make meaningful connections with those that she leads. She is selfless with her time and has an extraordinary mind for building the plane while flying it. And, although she has been the mastermind for many of these strangely new initiatives, she seldom takes credit, but rather elevates those around her. Ann is my DAISY Nurse Leader of the year!