Jan Riley won Daisy Award

Riley named DAISY Award recipient

Jan Riley, R.N., who works as a care manager in the NICU received the DAISY Award at Community Hospital North for August. Jan was nominated by a newborn patient's grandmother.

Even though Riley was supposed to leave work at 3 p.m., she stayed on her shift to be in the room with the young patient during surgery.

"My daughter was a wreck, and just knowing that Jan would be in there with her son helped ease her mind some," read the letter. "His surgery started at 5:30 p.m. and finished at 6:40 p.m., it was longest hour of our lives. He made it through and so did Jan. Jan stayed until 9 p.m., then charted a while, slept here at the hospital, and resumed his care again around 5 a.m.
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"All of the nurses here are wonderful, but Jan went well out of her way to help Joey and our family get through this all. If ever there is an award or some sort of way to recognize Jan for all she has done for Joey, for the selfless way she put aside her own life outside of the hospital to stay, Jan deserves it! We thank her all the time, but it doesn't seem to be enough.
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Riley began working at Community Hospital East in 1987 and started working at Community Hospital North's NICU in April. Throughout her career, she has worked in 11 different hospitals including ones in New Jersey and California. She received her nursing degree from Indiana University in 1987.

"I like the philosophy of patient-focused care and all the measures that are done to provide safe care," Riley says. "The hospital and NICU are beautiful and peaceful. I love my unit and having the resources to provide safe and excellent care to the babies. The NICU design is optimal for a nurturing environment."

Riley and her husband John have three children, Raymond, 14, Denni, 10, and Jeffery, 8. In her free time she enjoys running and hiking with her dog and playing guitar and banjo. Twice a week, she teaches a guitar group for children at Holy Spirit School, where John is a math and earth science teacher.

The DAISY Award is made possible through the generous support of the Community Health Network Foundation, 42 nurses were nominated by patients or families for a DAISY Award during the month of August. Nominations were submitted either by paper or through the hospital's interactive patient care system, the GetWell Network. From those nominations Community Hospital North's nursing directors selected the winning nomination based on the principles of Community's exceptional patient experience: providing care that is high quality, safe, compassionate, special, and timely.

In recognition for the exceptional patient experience, our DAISY Award recipient received:

• A DAISY Award certificate that reads "In deep appreciation of all you do, who you are, and the incredibly meaningful difference you make in the lives of so many"
• A DAISY Award pin
• A sculpture entitled A Healer's Touch. Each piece is hand-carved for the DAISY Foundation by artists of the Shona Tribe in Zimbabwe. The sculpture is made of Serpentine stone that comes from the mountains in Zimbabwe. In a letter to the owner of the gallery who imports these for DAISY, one of the artists described the suffering in Zimbabwe because there are no more tourists to buy their work. When The DAISY Foundation sends money over to buy sculptures, it is a tremendous relief to the artists who create them.
• An aromatherapy gift, provided by Well Spring Pharmacy
• A Simon mall gift card, provided by the Community Health Network Foundation
• A Starbucks gift card, provided by the GetWell Network
• Flowers, provided by the Jasmine gift shop
• A complementary meal in the Bamboo Café, provided by Community Food and Nutrition Services
• A 30 day fitness membership, provided by the BodyZone fitness center.
• A special 30 day parking pass, provided by Community Safety and Security
• A banner, provided by Sports Graphics, will be displayed on recipient's unit for the duration of the month
• Cinnabon cinnamon rolls for all the nurses in the recipient's unit.