Four Good Sam Nurses Honored at DAISY Award Ceremony February 13, 2023 Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center honored their fall/winter 2022 DAISY awards winners with an official ceremony Friday, Feb. 10, led by Good Samaritan CEO Laura Hennum, Vice President of Patient Services, Tim Eixenberger and DAISY Awards Coordinator, Laura Sailor. The DAISY Award was established by the family of J. Patrick Barnes, who died in 1999 at the age of 33 from an autoimmune disorder. His family was so moved by the care his nurses provided him that the family created the award to honor nurses for the astounding care they give. The four honored included nurses Michael Kolbas, Amanda Kimball, Kat Wortman and nurse leader Ann Sisson. Kolbas’ use of music therapy with an oncology patient suffering in tremendous pain was noted by his nominator. “The extra time Michael spent on things large and small throughout my stay, knowing he truly cared and was interested in me, makes the difference between a nurse doing their job and a nurse doing a great job,” the nominator noted. “That made a significant difference in how I healed and how other patients can heal.” Kolbas remembered the patient that nominated him. To ease her pain, he said he set her up with a portable speaker to listen to his curated playlist of soothing music. Kimball was described by her co-workers as a leader who demonstrates her skills through action. “Amanda always keeps a level head when the volume of patients won’t stop coming through the door,” a team of nominators wrote. “She frequently wears many different hats at the same time. She’s been known to work as the nursery nurse, charge nurse and even take on a labor patient at the same time. I don’t think the word ‘no’ is in her vocabulary.” Kimball said she first thought about being a doctor while taking care of a sick brother early in life, but her world changed when she became a mom at a young age. “I was a teenage mother, kind of feeling like I was having to give up all my dreams then my labor nurse introduced me into nursing,” said Kimball. “I never thought about nursing as a career, but I decided to become a CNA and just fell in love with the profession.” Wortman was noted for her “extreme selflessness” in caring for a co-worker’s loved one in Good Sam’s Progressive Care Unit. Wortman, who was raised in Crimea, was educated in Europe as a doctor and went back to school for a nursing degree after coming to the United States. “Kat was recently the nurse for my family member when admitted to PCU at GSRMC,” wrote Krista Herron, RN in her nomination letter. “As an experienced ICU RN myself, I tend to place other nurses to a high professional standard of care; Kat easily exceeded those expectations.” “While Kat was providing exceptional care to my own family member. It wasn’t lost on me that her own loved ones were currently experiencing an unprecedented assault on Ukrainian cities; forcing her family and friends to hide in subway stations and flee their homes to refugee shelters.” Sisson’s anonymous nominator said she was an “amazing educator” during her former role as PCU nurse educator, a position she left recently to become the head manager of PCU. As invited staff gathered in a Good Samaritan conference room, the four winners were presented with bouquets of daisies and roses, a certificate, a DAISY pin and as tradition at Good Samaritan, a Healer’s Touch sculpture which was hand carved by an artist in Zimbabwe. Patients, families and co-workers can nominate a nurse for a DAISY Award at samhealth.org/DAISY. More information is available at daisyfoundation.org. Past GSRMC DAISY Winners 2019: Florita Alley Sean Barnett Leslie Hillard Bill Howden- Nurse Leader 2020: Candace Maccarone Janes Carron Gutierrez Florita Alley Heather Greene Pushpa Kanapareddy Sylvia Little 2021 Jennifer Bond Elizabeth Lewis Mandy Clark Veronica Walker- Nurse Leader Tammy Miller Christopher Brandt Mendy Alvernaz Paula Stahl- Nurse Leader 2022 Jessica Bowers Kate Riley Libby Brooks
