Daria exudes compassion for people, especially in the nursing profession. When Covid 19 became real for us at LCH, Daria made lots of inspirational painted rocks and placed them around the campus. She touched every hospital discipline and all areas of nursing. Some of these included registration, ED, case management, and others.

For COVID-19 and mask-wearing, Daria made the entire department headbands with buttons for us to wear with our masks. At Christmas, Daria decorates our tree with ornaments that she has designed especially with each employee’s name on them, and this past year, she made a very special one for the WLC surgical tech who passed away last fall in remembrance. Daria constantly thinks of others instead of herself. All these things she does with her own money and time.

Daria is one of our nurse preceptors on the WLC unit. She is kind, caring, and compassionate, serving as a role model and mentor. Daria takes her time to precept new employees and nurse residents. She makes sure that she makes them feel comfortable asking questions and acts as a safe zone for them. Daria teaches them the “why” of the procedure or task that is being performed. Daria is a very safe practitioner and makes sure that her patients are given the best opportunity for good outcomes by faithfully following clinical guidelines, recommendations, EPIC requirements, and policy/procedure.

Daria has an infinity for babies and is known for her newborn specialty. Daria pitches in to help and guide if we get a baby who is sick and waiting on NICU transport. We all feel more comfortable when Daria is on duty because of her knowledge and expertise. Daria delivers excellent customer service and this can be heard directly from the patients when rounding. The patients tell how Daria makes them feel more comfortable and made them feel like family. Daria goes to any length to take excellent care of her patients. She always makes sure that she orders our new parents their steak dinner and she notes this on her communication boards in the patient rooms.

Daria is committed to clinical quality outcomes. Daria has been responsible for our newborn hearing program for several years. She makes sure that all hearing screens are submitted to SC DHEC and that hearing screen referrals for failed tests are followed up on with specialist appointments. Daria has been recognized many times by SC DHEC for having 100% compliance on hearing screen result submission/follow-up and has also been recognized by our CNO, Kay Swisher for this level of excellence as well. I highly recommend Daria Hughes for the DAISY Award as she exhibits the quality of an Extraordinary Nurse!!