Awards/Recognition

Hurricane Sandy response earns entire Beth Israel Medical Enter staff the ADVANCE 2013 Best Nursing Team award. Download the full story here.

Sandra Morales, RN, a Beth Israel Labor and Delivery Room nurse for 20 years, recently received the 1199/SEIU/League Nurse of Distinction Award, Preceptor Category, for providing excellent patient care and educating new nurses.

"In her role as preceptor, she demonstrates her expertise with patience and has a talent for simplifying complex issues," says Carmen D. Schmidt, RN, MSN, Director, Nursing Education and Research at BI and St. Luke's and Roosevelt Hospitals. "She conveys a sense of calm and confidence to newly hired nurses, who can easily be intimidated by the activities in Labor and Delivery."

Ms. Morales, who was chosen from among several nominees representing hospitals and nursing homes in the New York metropolitan area, graduated with an Associate Degree in nursing from BI, then continued her education at Pace University. That was put on hold by family responsibilities, but she went on to complete her BSN this year at Grand Canyon University. She also is certified in obstetrics and as a lactation consultant.

Other BI nurses honored were Wayde Binder, RN, Nurse Manager, 3 Karpas/Dazian, BI Petrie, and Michael Willis, APRN, CWOCN, Ostomy and Wound Service, BI Brooklyn, for nursing leadership; Noel Emde, RN, BI Petrie, and Eugene Vaknansky, RN, 3 East, BI Brooklyn, as novice nurses; Yvette Tabernilla, RN, 3 East, BI Brooklyn, as preceptor; and Maria Pagani, RN, Intensive Care Unit, BI Brooklyn, and Kathleen Duignan, RN, BI Petrie, for excellence in patient-centered care.

June 2012- Karen Doblin, an ambulatory care NP in the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care (DPMPC), was recently named a regional winner at Nurse.com's 2012 Nursing Excellence Awards in the Home, Community & Ambulatory Care category. Karen was nominated by a group of her peers for the exceptional care she provides to her patients and the generous sharing of knowledge and expertise that she shares with her colleagues.

Karen provides the latest in care and therapy for more than 700 patients who suffer from intractable pain and other syndromes. With her physician collaborator, she conducts new patient histories and physicals, diagnoses various pain conditions, orders tests, and makes referrals to other specialists. She also teaches patients with educational materials that emphasize self-care and various holistic therapies, and writes prescriptions for the many follow-up patients seen daily at the clinic.

One of the two particular cases shared by her colleagues included the story of a 26-year old male. This patient, who is confined to a wheelchair suffering from what the team describes as one of the worse cases of complex regional pain syndrome, had been in Karen's care for five years. Karen was instrumental in reading the literature about an experimental treatment, and brought the idea to the attention of the Department Chair. The Chair was about to propose a trial to administration when a short-term solution was available and ultimately beneficial. The treatment has enabled this patient to be more functional and achieve a better quality of life, including being about to walk in Central Park with his family, a favorite past-time.

Recognized as a consummate professional, a superb educator, and dedicated preceptor, Karen engages in research studies that originate from her daily work and the many challenges her patients face. She also publishes and speaks on the topic, and is a faculty member in a pain fellowship program. Soon to receive her doctorate, the attribute most often used to describe her is CARING!

May 2012 - Laura O'Brien, RN, CCRN, Clinical Nurse Specialist recently received a 2012 AACN Circle of Excellence Award at May's AACN National Teaching Institute Conference in Orlando, Florida. She was one of twenty-five nationally selected AACN award recipients -- and the only recipient from New York State. Laura was nominated by her colleagues at BIMC and then recognized by AACN for her innovative clinical, educational and professional resource roles as a critical care clinical nurse specialist at BI for more than 18 years. Her nomination and award highlight Laura's ability to 'think out of the box'; develop resources for staff; promote evidence-based practice; and build practice consensus. Her award citation noted "...achieves it with humor, clinical expertise and the ability to listen and synthesize many viewpoints into clinically coherent practice that improves patient care."

The Circle of Excellence awards recognize and showcase excellent outcomes in the care of acutely and critically ill patients and their families. The awards program is designed to align with the AACN's mission and vision focusing on outcomes responsive to professional and environmental issues in acute and critical care nursing. Nominations are evaluated by a panel of reviewers, and rated on a variety of criteria, including:

• Relentlessly promotes patient-driven excellence
• Models skilled communication, true collaboration, effective decision-making and meaningful recognition
• Transforms thinking, structures and processes to address challenges and remove barriers to advance patient-driven excellence
• Furthers AACN's mission and key initiatives at influential forums
• Enriches own and other organizations by influencing and mentoring others in achieving excellence
• Achieves visible results that validate impact of individual leadership contribution to organizational excellence

As a Circle of Excellence Award recipient Laura now becomes a permanent member of the AACN Circle of Excellence Society.

Mary Walsh, MSN, RN, CEN, Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Beth Israel Medical Center and Continuum Health Partners Corporate CNO for Quality, Practice and Standards , successfully completed the ANA Nurse Executive, Advanced Certification (NEA-BC), on July 9th. She is one of only 364 Senior Nurse Leaders to have accompliished this certification.

Nurses Week celebrations at Beth Israel Medical Center were capped by the presentation of the Beatrice Renfield Circle of Excellence awards to honorees nominated by their peers.

The top honoree, Thelma Myers-Navarro, RN, received the Beatrice Renfield Gold Circle of Excellence Award, the highest professional nursing award given at BI. Her contributions to the operation of Phillips Ambulatory Care Center (PACC) were recognized by Ronald H. Blum, MD, Director of Programs, Continuum Cancer Centers of New York, and Karen DeVries, RN, who, with Ms. Myers-Navarro, is one of only four recipients of Gold Circle of Excellence Awards in the 13-year history of the Renfield honors.

The other 2011 Beatrice Renfield Circle of Excellence award winners are Robert Freeman, RN, Petrie Division, who received the Novice Nurse Award for Excellence in Patient-Centered Care; Wayde Binder, RN, for Excellence in Nursing Leadership; and Deloris Whynne, Petrie Division, who received the Award for Excellence in Patient-Centered Care by a Preceptor. Winners of Excellence in Patient-Centered Care awards are staff nurses Victoria Lyddy, RN, PACC; Garcia Myers, RN, 5 Linsky; Lorraine O’Connor, RN, KHD ED; Laura Rodriguez, RN, Pediatrics, Petrie Division; and Arlene Speer, RN, CSICU, Petrie Division.

Winning the Multidisciplinary Team Collaboration Award are Beth Israel Brooklyn’s 2 West orthopedic unit, under the leadership of Nurse Manager Catherine Leota, RN, and The Robert Mapplethorpe Residential Treatment Facility nursing team, led by Director of Nursing Marilyn Guntzler, RN.

Beth Israel and Beth Israel Brooklyn recently held ceremonies honoring this year’s Heart Award recipients. At Petrie, 10 individuals were honored for outstanding performance, and extraordinary dedication and interaction with colleagues, patients and families. They are Roxana Badiu, Frank Cefali, Eugene Earle, Elaine Earlington, Rebecca Esquioja, Karen Goodwin, Marcia Graham, Brian S. Koll, MD, Barbara Ravida, and Hezekiah Wright.

At Beth Israel Brooklyn, four employees received the Heart Award—Fe Aguilar, RN, Roman Khait, Frank Moschella and Susanne Stefko.

BI President Harris M. Nagler, MD, received a special Heart Award for his exemplary leadership, presented to him by Mary Walsh, RN, Vice President of Patient Care Services.

“Beyond the clinical and symbolic significance of the heart, the Heart Awards honor individuals who have ‘a lot of heart’ and ‘hearts of gold’,” says Marie Flordeliza, RN, MHA, CCRN, Vice President of Patient Care Services at KHD. “I am proud that these recipients are part of our team.”

The March edition of We Are Here to Help, BI’s staff satisfaction newsletter, includes profiles of each honoree. It is being distributed throughout BI and also is posted in the “Announcements” section of Beth Israel’s home page on the Continuum Intranet.