Nomination Letter
Meet Daisy:
How long have you been with BrightStar Care? 2010-2012, 2012-present (total of roughly 4 years)Credentials & Graduating School: RN and Bridgeport Hospital (2008)
Why did you choose the nursing profession? I have always known I would go into nursing. As a teenager, I helped care for my grandmother and mother in their final days. I was determined to pursue this career in order to give back to my community and offer compassion to those in need.
Why did you choose to work for BrightStar Care? My first impression of BrightStar Care was that it was a fantastic place to learn and be exposed to lots of different cases. I was also impressed with BrightStar Care’s innovative technology, care plans and medication lists.
Favorite client moment/memory: My favorite client was also one of my most challenging. While many others found it difficult to communicate, I made a connection with this client and bonded over a dry sense of humor.
Daisy's Nomination:
This nomination for Nurse of the Year is long overdue!
We have achieved a great deal of success over the last five and a half years and have gained a reputation in our towns for responding quickly in providing hands on, person-centered quality care to our clients. While this has been a team effort, the core of this team has been our Director of Nursing, Daisy Cruz.
Daisy has been our DON right from the start and she has starred in her role as Quality Control Officer. She is intimately involved in the selection, hiring, training and supervising of all our caregivers and does all the initial client assessments during our Living Room Visits. Her Plans of Care are meticulous and comprehensive and she takes a personal involvement in every one of our clients. Whether Daisy is coaching a caregiver in a specific competency, checking with a doctor on a client’s change in condition or talking to a family member about equipment needed, her focus is always on her client / patient.
Daisy is professional in her approach with our caregivers. She is caring and compassionate in her approach with patients and their family members. As a business owner I appreciate her ability to look at the big picture and ask the question of how will this policy / procedure / opportunity impact the business.
Some of her recent accomplishments are:
- Spearheaded the effort in having the office become one of the Pioneers for the BrightStar Connections program. This effort resulted in our being recognized as the agency to contact for dementia assistance in our Assisted Living communities. Currently over 50 % of our caregivers have been Dementia Training certified and 41% of our clients are provided dementia assistance.
- Initiated a program using LPNs where our caregivers are supervised and trained on an individual basis. Training provided is one of our highest ranks per Home Care Pulse.
- Supervised and participated in conducting over 140 assessments in 2015 for Long Term Solutions and other National Accounts. At least 5% of these assessments resulted in private duty care cases resulting in over $100,000.
- Personally hired, scheduled and supervised a team of RNs and LPNs as they conducted 23 Flu Clinics over a two month period last year. She handled all communication and logistics with our National Account partners resulting in over $23,000 in incremental revenue.
Hi Ray. I'm writing to you in total support of nominating Daisy for Nurse of the Year. Patti and I couldn't agree more. Having worked with Daisy for nearly five years, I can tell you with impunity that Daisy is a talented, intelligent, intuitive, compassionate and reliable individual. She is very capable and extremely well versed in her knowledge of her many various duties required to fulfill this difficult job.
I can't express enough my total and never ending gratitude for the time and effort she has put in working with and for my mother. As we all know, my Mom hasn't always been the easiest person to work with but Daisy has always taken that in stride and has never wavered, even in the most difficult situations of which there have been plenty. She has always treated my Mother with the utmost dignity and respect especially at the most difficult times. The list of her accomplishments would be many pages long and without Daisy help, I'm not sure what I would have done all these years.
Words can't describe how grateful and appreciative both Patti and I are to have Daisy to rely on.
As far as Patti and I are concerned Daisy is certainly an exemplary candidate and there is no one more deserving of the Nurse of the Year award.
We wish her the best.
Sincerely,
Todd and Patti Ford
In conclusion, I strongly recommend and nominate Daisy Cruz as 2016 Nurse of the Year.