Meet Our Charleston, SC 2015 Nurse of the Year Nominee

Every day, a growing number of dedicated nurses care for aging adults and people with complex medical needs inside their homes, administering daily medications, providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness, and managing personalized plans of care. To pay tribute to the specialized and tireless work of thousands of nurses throughout the network, BrightStar Care launched a national Nurse of the Year program to recognize the nurses who are working hard to deliver A Higher Standard of Home Care each and every day. This year, our Director of Nursing Cori Duguay was nominated. Here is the nomination letter about Cori: I am excited for the opportunity to nominate our Director of Nursing, Cori Duguay, for Nurse of the Year. My husband and I purchased this location last summer with very little industry experience and were blessed with a strong core office team including Cori. As we attended boot camps and training experiences, we quickly came to realize just how lucky we were. Cori is an extremely hardworking, dedicated Director of Nursing. I think what makes Cori special and why we consider her invaluable is that she is driven by the highest of standards for client care always looking for ways to improve the BrightStar Care experience AND she thinks like an owner! She came to BrightStar of Charleston before they began the process of Joint Commission Accreditation and took her responsibility to make that happen very seriously. We are approaching our survey time and she has already begun the process of self-education and preparedness so that we will sail through with flying colors. She maintains incredibly high standards for herself and is a role model for each of our caregivers. She treats each caregiver and client as though they are our most important. She is a phenomenal study at each living room visit and gets to know the “Sharon-ness of Sharon” for each client. She is instrumental in reporting the information that she has gathered so that we can truly follow through on our guaranteed compatibility promise. If she senses that a situation would benefit from her “transitioning” the case (like a client coming home from a facility) she is the first to arrive on the scene at that time and getting them situated and comfortable with our caregiver and new presence in their home. She knows each and every client so well. This past weekend a long time client of ours was reported as having flu like symptoms via our caregiver. Cori knew that this client is very prone to dehydration and disorientation. We were not scheduled to be with this client but Cori went to follow up and check on her. She was right in her instinct as this client was feeling very poorly and needed a lot more help than usual. Needless to say, the client and the family were very grateful for her attentiveness. This is not an exception, this is the norm with Cori. She will not allow anyone or anything to slip through the cracks. She lives and breathes BrightStar Care. She is truly accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She is a terrific sales person and has helped us as we learned the business. She maintains such high standards while never losing sight of the bottom line. Her presence in our community sends such a positive message about our quality of care and concern for our clients. She truly is our “Beautiful Brain Nurse!”