HCA Healthcare Excellence in Nursing Award: Compassionate Care

Compassionate Care Recipient: Teresa Bolido, RN, Alaska Regional Hospital, Anchorage, AK

“My patients deserve everything that I have,” says Teresa Bolido, RN. “It’s an uneasy feeling for me to be unable to fix something, so I do whatever I can to help them get through their stay with us. You can make someone comfortable in so many ways beyond the physical — with extra attention, a shoulder rub to relieve anxiety or just spending some time with them.”

Bolido’s supervisors, colleagues and patients can rattle off any number of examples of her compassionate care at Alaska Regional Hospital. Here is just one: Ms. Betty, an elderly patient who had recently relocated to Anchorage, felt especially low. She missed her faraway friends, children and dogs. A heartfelt hug didn’t feel like enough to lift her spirits, so Teresa videoed her son and niece singing Ms. Betty a happy song, and played it on her phone for the patient. It moved her to tears.

The nurses and doctors she works alongside know that Teresa will not only lend a helping hand when they need one, but will share her knowledge and offer encouragement to inspire them, too. As charge nurse, she looks out for her team, knowing that relieving their stresses and sharing information with them results in the best possible care for their patients.

Dr. Madhu Prasad, a surgical oncologist, performs complex surgeries that had not previously been common in Alaska, and he has high praise for Teresa’s care of his patients, noting, “Most nurses had little experience in the specifics of their postoperative management, which was critical to their outcome. Teresa embraced the task of mastering the care and management of this challenging and labor-intensive patient population with a quiet enthusiasm, diligence and dedication that have been highly effective, and I credit her individual excellence and leadership skills for the superb results and outcomes we have achieved.”

Though everyone around her sees all that she does as extraordinary, Teresa believes she is simply doing what good nurses do. “I am honored to receive this,” she says of the HCA Healthcare Excellence in Nursing Award. “It reassures me that I’m making a difference and doing what I am supposed to do. But I don’t feel that I deserve this any more than the people I work with, who give their all to our patients and to the hospital. I receive the award for them.”

Compassionate Care Finalist: Angie Fenn, RN Nurse Manager, West Florida Healthcare, Tallahassee, FL

Ben is a big, strong man who arrived at West Florida Healthcare’s progressive care unit with medical problems that often frustrated him. He was unable to perform the simplest tasks for himself. He also had psychiatric issues that could make him difficult to manage — to the point that he would need restraints and a guard at his hospital room door. His aggressive behavior scared some of the nurses, and they hesitated to enter his room.

Angie Fenn understood that fear was justified, but also knew that Ben deserved to get the best possible treatment and that if his ability to function didn’t improve, he would remain a fixture on the unit. So, she found a way to ensure staff safety and meet Ben’s need for care.

Fenn put together a treatment team that included progressive care, psychiatry, case management, physical therapy, pharmacy and security.

She was there for his wife, too, answering her questions or just listening to her frustrations.

Soon Ben could get out of bed without help. He could feed himself, walk without a therapist’s assistance. Fenn was there for it all, not only as a nurse taking care of a patient, but as a friend to someone who needed one. After three months, Ben was able to go home. His wife keeps in touch with Fenn about his progress.

“The care she dedicated to [Ben] was beyond outstanding,” she wrote. “She was genuinely invested in his recovery and overall well-being.”

Compassionate Care Finalist: Kathryn Beechinor, RGN, RM Staff Midwife, The Portland Hospital, London, UK

Families anticipating the arrival of a new baby see a world of wonderful possibilities ahead, so it is devastating when the worst happens and the future life they imagined and treasured is gone. Midwife Kathryn Beechinor stands beside families experiencing the loss of a baby during pregnancy or at birth, supporting them as they struggle to make sense of what has happened.

She offers empathy and strength, guiding bereaved parents through a painful process so that they can mourn their loss in the way they need to. She introduced memory boxes to Portland Hospital, for parents to collect items such as their baby’s footprints and a lock of hair.

Beechinor looked into ways for parents to spend as much time with their deceased child as they needed, and found the Cold Cot, a crib with a cooling system in it, which preserves the baby’s body until the parents are ready to say goodbye. Though their lives are short, the memory of these lost babies stays with each family and Beechinor helps to organize an annual memorial service at the hospital chapel. Many parents attend year after year.

Parents in mourning rely on her sturdiness. As one patient wrote: “It was a great comfort to have you looking after us during what was inevitably a difficult time. Your compassion and humor helped us to get through it, so we wanted to thank you for that.”