This past week, from May 6-12, Sarasota Memorial Health Care System (SMH) celebrated National Nurses Week. SMH’s two hospitals—one in Sarasota and another in Venice—and its health system employs over 3,500 nurses and 1,100 patient care/multi-skilled techs. These nurses and techs are in many ways the lifeblood of a hospital system, working the front lines of patient care and ensuring that all of the complex mechanisms of a hospital system run smoothly and efficiently.
“For us at SMH, we take the opportunity to recognize, celebrate and thank our nurses and techs for all of their hard work, unwavering dedication, commitment, caring and compassion,” says SMH Chief Nursing Officer Jean Lucas, PhD, APRN. “I’m so proud of our nurses and their continued commitment to providing the highest quality care for our patients. They are the ones who are there for our patients and their families in the good times and the bad times—they’re dedicated to always being there as needed.”
Some of the traditions included in SMH’s celebration of National Nurses Week, include recognizing Nurses of Excellence, a peer-nominated process that celebrates nurses and techs that exude SMH’s core values. “That’s always a really exciting time of the week, to have these nurses and techs nominated by their peers,” says Lucas. “We also do the “Blessing of the Hands”, which is a tradition where the chaplains anoint nurses’ hands with oil and bless them as instruments of healing. That’s something that’s very heartfelt across our system. Then we have a lot of unit-based and department-based celebrations as well.”…