I would like to recommend Gabe for The DAISY Award for her amazing patient advocacy and strong clinical skills that significantly improved a patient’s quality of life and clinical outcomes. The patient obtained a wound while in the hospital. He required daily wound dressing changes and was discharged to skilled rehab. While in skilled rehab the patient’s mother died and therefore he left the rehab before the wound had healed and/or was ready. The rehab had trained the patient’s wife on how to manage the wound care dressing as they were not able to obtain home health services for this patient or get him into a wound care center timely. Shortly after getting home- the patient and his wife started calling the primary care office as the wife was not able to manage his wound care dressing and she was concerned it was getting worse. In collaboration with the PCP Gabe met with the patient and his wife to change the dressing and provide further education. In the meantime, she contacted every home health agency and wound care center in the coastal Maine area trying to advocate for getting this patient services. She was repeatedly told that they did not cover his area they could not get him in for weeks/months didn't have enough staff or she never heard back from anyone.

In the meantime, the patient’s wife continued to be challenged with managing the dressing changes for her husband's wound and it was getting worse. Gabe continued to manage his wound care dressings daily while still working tirelessly trying to find him services. Despite her best efforts the wound continued to get worse and the patient was likely to end back up in the hospital.

With no other options- Gabe turned to me as her leader for help. We came up with a game plan for coordinating wound care for the patient over the weekend at the WIC and getting him in for an urgent visit at our wound care center. Furthermore, she helped facilitate outreach to Maine Care Health at Home who is now planning to see the patient this weekend. The patient and his wife were almost in tears yesterday after getting this news as they could no longer afford the gas to come to Brunswick every day from Boothbay Harbor and the 2 hour commute daily was continuing to cause increased pressure and issues for the patient's wound.

Without Gabe's strong clinical skills dedication to a positive clinical outcome tenacity and willingness to not give up despite numerous barriers- this patient would have likely had an infected wound and ended up back in the hospital or worse. The weeks and hours she spent- as the only RN in the practice- ensuring this patient had the care he needed and deserved was truly remarkable.