GRMC bestows its first DAISY Award

GRMC bestows first DAISY award to honor an exceptional nurse

Photos and article by Mary Alice Murphy

At Gila Regional Medical Center, which recently joined the more than 4,500 medical facilities worldwide that present the DAISY Award to extraordinary nurses, the first recipient was Jim Greenwood.

Greenwood received a DAISY Award pin and a small sculpture, called The Healer's Touch. Each sculpture is created by an artist from the Shona Tribe in Zimbabwe. The award also comes with other benefits including reduced tuition for furthering one's education and medical mission grants.

Greenwood is nearing retirement, so probably will not use those benefits.

Chief Nursing Officer Kelly Rodriguez talked about the award to a socially distanced and masked group in the GRMC courtyard on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020. Carmen Molina, RN, who nominated Greenwood for the award, presented it to him.

What is a DAISY award? The acronym for the honor stands for Diseases Attacking the Immune System. The DAISY Foundation was formed in November 1999 by the family of J. Patrick Barnes, who died at age 33 of complications of the auto-immune disease Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura. The nursing care Patrick received during his hospitalization profoundly touched his family, according to www.daisyfoundation.org. They expected the best of care, but "we did not expect the way his nurses delivered that care, with kindness and compassion…. The way they informed and educated us eased our minds." His wife, Tena, who had just had their first child less than two months before her husband's diagnosis, came up with the acronym and the family filed papers to become a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. "We knew we needed to say thank you for the gifts nurses give their patients and families every day….We created the DAISY Award for extraordinary nurses and piloted the program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance where Patrick received care during the last weeks of his life."

In addition, it is traditional for refreshments at an award ceremony to include cinnamon rolls. "When Patrick was in the hospital, he had lost his appetite," according to www.daisyfoundation.org. "One day his father came in with a cinnamon roll and Patrick ended up eating the whole thing. He requested his father bring cinnamon rolls again the next day and requested enough for all the nurses in the unit."

A large celebratory banner will be hung in the GRMC Med Surg unit for a month.

Rodriguez said the hospital will honor one nurse annually, "to keep it special."

Greenwood said: "I work with phenomenal people. This is an acknowledgement of the uplifting and healing that nurses do for patients. Nothing works better than paying attention."

He told the Beat he has served as a nurse since 2006 in Grant County, including at 10 years at several local home health organizations, including Gila Regional, when they still had the program. Most recently, he has been serving in case management at Gila Regional. Before coming to Grant County, he said he did a lot of travel nursing around the country and world.