Tag Archive for: president’s awards
Each year, Northwell’s President’s Awards recognize team members who not only surpass our expectations and standards of excellence, but also those who drive innovative business outcomes.
The Innovation award recognizes team members who were finalists in the Innovation Challenge. Northwell’s Innovation Challenge empowers team members to come up with the next big health care innovation in areas such as revenue through new or existing channels, improve patient experience, improve quality of care, positively impact health outcomes and so much more. As an organization, we understand that our people are the ones who bring our patient care to the next level, and this program gives them an opportunity to share their big ideas. Meet this year’s finalists.
AccuLABeler
AccuLABeler represents a proprietary middle-ware solution that interfaces with existing robotics machinery and a lab information system (LIS) to more efficiently relabel tubes referred to the lab for analysis from non-system sources. At Northwell, the current workflow requires 12 FTEs who perform accessioning and relabeling of these tubes. The total available market encompasses reference laboratories in the United States and abroad.
Bedside Voice Assistant
The Bedside Voice Assistant (BVA) involves the continued development of an existing prototype of a bed-side Alexa based voice assistant created by members of the Northwell Innovation Center. This innovation represents a developed software product which is cloud based, HIPAA compliant and will be agnostic to EMR system for integration and scalability.
EDCAP aza-Peptide Building Blocks for Preferred Drug Characteristics
Many pharmaceutical drugs are peptides, small fragments of proteins. When carefully chosen, peptides offer the advantage of selectivity toward a target coupled with minimal adverse side effects. However, peptides suffer from a very short half-life, and their effect can be very short lived because they are destroyed in seconds in the blood. The EDCAP technology offers a general solution to this stability issue through changing the labile peptide bond to an alternate bond that is resistant to peptidases (stable for hours in the blood).
LabFly: Mobile Phlebotomy App
The proposed innovation reflects the development of a mobile blood drawing solution for patients and caregivers. As developed, LabFly would serve as the patient facing application, and integrate with LabFly Phleb, a phlebotomist facing application. The applications have been reviewed by the Northwell OCIO, OCIO security review, penetration tests and a QM validation. Future development of the application could support on demand appointments for flu shots and strep testing, and/or integration with care delivery within emergency rooms.
Real-Time Actionable Data (RAD)
The RAD invention represents a data analysis and reporting tool which provides real time, actionable data related to ED utilization and the allocation of clinical resources. RAD addresses an unmet need in many if not all emergency rooms by supporting data driven, patient specific, decision making. This product builds upon the work conducted over the past several years within the Northwell Emergency Medicine service line.
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Each year, Northwell’s President’s Awards recognize team members who not only surpass our expectations and standards of excellence, but also those who drive innovative business outcomes.
The Nurse of the Year award recognizes a nurse who is made for going the extra mile for his or her patients, families and colleagues. Exemplifying our Northwell values and behaviors, this individual delivers high-quality clinical care and a compassionate patient experience. Meet this year’s finalists.
Angela Daly, RN
Physician Partners, Cardiology at Southampton
Inspired by the extra efforts she saw nurses and others doing to take care of her mother, Angela Daly knew nursing was what she was meant to do. During the course of her career, she’s demonstrated efficiency and compassion, finding the small ways in which nurses can have a major impact on patients’ lives. Angela has solved problems, finding ways to improve how nurses were deployed throughout the Cardiac service line and how information was conveyed.
Taking a creative approach, Angela developed a telephone triage and patient education guide for her Flex Pool to demonstrate the best workflow in addressing patient calls, elevating patient concerns to providers and educating patients in a way that they can understand. Her guide is used throughout Northwell’s Cardiac service line. Angela also sends letters to every doctor that her patients see to ensure interdisciplinary communication is intact and that the patient’s treatment course with an investigational drug product is considered in the spectrum of their care. When she saw some information wasn’t making its way to all inpatient team members, she worked to develop chart notes that would be delivered to those who need them. And after realizing that more nurses were needed in the Cardiac service line, Angela worked to create a “Float Pool,” and recruited more than 90 nurses, trained them to cover the practices and developed guidelines so that the nurses would have the tools they needed to care more efficiently for our patients.
Alexa Damone, RN
Medical Surgical Unit, Glen Cove Hospital
Alexa Damone’s passion for her work is evident to her patients and colleagues by constantly learning new skills to improve medical care.
Alexa has the ability to relate to patients and their families through her caring manner and attentive demeanor. Her deep commitment is evident to her patients and her colleagues and was recognized by the hospital when she was honored in the hospital’s first “Breakfast with the Stars.” She is empathic, compassionate, an excellent communicator, possesses solid clinical and problem-solving skills and serves as an advocate for her patients.
Her commitment to helping peers is inspirational. Upon returning from a sepsis conference, Alexa shared her newly developed knowledge with her peers to improve the identification and prompt treatment of sepsis. She was a part of a project on infection control that led to better hand hygiene and infection control practices on the unit. Alexa is involved in another project aimed at improving the patient experience. With diabetes becoming increasingly prevalent, especially among the elderly, she attended a two-day workshop recognizing the importance of diabetes knowledge, management and education, enabling her to become a unit champion and valuable resource for her peers and patients.
Maryann Portoro, RN
Emergency Department, Phelps Hospital
Maryann Portoro sets a calm tone for patients and team members who, in the sometimes chaotic emergency care environment, need reassurance and compassion. She has devoted 45 years of her nursing career to caring for patients requiring emergency interventions. Maryann’s nursing role is characterized by her philosophy “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” She is noted for her quick assessment and innovative interventions to support excellence in patient care. She demonstrates her leadership skills by taking charge while not losing her compassionate approach in the Emergency Department, sometimes rocking babies, other times holding the hand of an upset or frightened patient.
Maryann’s care doesn’t stop with patients; she provides timeouts to ease a team member experiencing grief after a loss.
Her sensitivity to people’s needs is in real time with positive, thoughtful recognition. She uses her abilities to think quickly and creatively in any situation, de-escalating a crisis by knowing just what to do to calm and control a situation. Her dedication extends to finding and implementing ways to improve new nursing care delivery models.
Dominick Pugliese, RN
Northwell Health At Home
Dominick Pugliese represents the future of Northwell Health nursing care. As a young RN he has already impressed his supervisors with his ability to learn quickly and with his commitment to caring for those in need. Joining Northwell Health At Home just a little over a year ago, he made the switch from a hospital Respiratory Care Unit to Home Health because he wanted to work with patients as their primary nurse in their homes. He had been inspired by his involvement with Project Hope on Staten Island. He was among the part-time team member who went door-to-door to provide crisis counseling to families who were suffering from the fear, anxiety, anger and helplessness after the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. He rode on a medical bus, which was run by nurses.
At Northwell Health At Home, he mixes an interest and skill in using technology, such as the telehealth program, with devotion to hands-on care that depends on personal attention to a patient’s needs. Dominick’s potential led to his appointment to a task force that created Northwell Health At Home’s Heart Failure program, which was recently certified by the Joint Commission.
Jeffrey Rosa, RN
Surgical Intensive Care Unit, Long Island Jewish Medical Center
Passion for his patients and awareness of the complexities of navigating the emotions and needs of those in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit drive the care provided by Jeffrey Rosa. He witnessed the excellent care provided to his grandmother, and, later, as a paramedic, responded to the horrors of the Sept. 11 attack at the World Trade Center, which solidified his determination to become a nurse.
At Long Island Jewish Medical Center (LIJMC), Jeffrey is known as “the go-to player,” someone who has made it his business to know everything he needs to know about every patient in a unit where extra compassion, understanding and respect for what patients and families are going through are crucial. He is completely dedicated to inspiring and teaching new nurses to share his passion and expertise. He coaches, mentors and serves as a role model for his peers. Jeffrey lectures the hemodynamics portion of the nursing fellowship curriculum and shares his passion for work he does daily.
Jeffrey participates in countless committees, including the Magnet task force, and as co-chair of the Surgical ICU’s Collaborative Care Council, he facilitates the agenda and pushes LIJMC nursing units to share innovative solutions and champion new ideas and processes.
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Each year, Northwell’s President’s Awards recognize team members who not only surpass our expectations and standards of excellence, but also those who drive innovative business outcomes.
The Physician of the Year award recognizes a physician who is made for going the extra mile for his or her patients, families and colleagues. Exemplifying our Northwell values and behaviors, this individual delivers high-quality clinical care and a compassionate patient experience. Meet this year’s finalists.
Santhosh Paulus, MD
Hospitalist, Director, Family Medicine Residency, Huntington Hospital
Dr. Santhosh Paulus turned a personal crusade against the abuses of human trafficking into an innovative program at Northwell. He began his Northwell career at the Glen Cove Family Medicine Residency program and is now site director for Huntington. In that role, he strives to meet three challenges: to teach the art and science of family medicine, to advocate for the best interest of his learners, and to be the quintessential role model of diligent attention to patient care, humanistic practice and lifelong learning.
In 2014, Dr. Paulus’ passion for caring for those in need grew. He saw a presentation on human trafficking and realized that his four daughters were of the same age as many victims in the presentation about forced labor, commercial sexual exploitation and sexual slavery in the US today. He joined a team and biked across the country to raise funds and awareness about human trafficking. Then he created “Cycling for Change,” an organization which has raised more than $55,000 to increase awareness about human trafficking and help survivors. Still, he wanted to do more. After talking with senior leadership at Huntington Hospital, he assembled a team to create the first Northwell Health Human Trafficking Response Program to identify and assist human trafficking victims and care for survivors. To date, the Task Force has trained more than 2,700 caregivers with 13 potential victims identified.
Yili Huang, DO
Medical Director, Pain Management Center, Phelps Hospital,
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell
Dr. Yili Huang has drawn on his empathy for the suffering of others to become a leader in treating pain on the individual and community level. In his pain management center, Dr. Huang meets with individual patients and finds creative ways to address their suffering. He delivers education to his team of physicians, nurses, and medical assistants, which has led to an improvement of pain scores at Phelps Hospital. He successfully performed an ultrasound-guided fascia iliaca nerve block recently to relieve intense pain in a patient with a hip fracture and a high tolerance for pain medications, controlling her suffering in preparation for surgery.
Dr. Huang’s commitment to his patients doesn’t stop there.
He is in the forefront of tackling a significant national problem: opioid addiction. He shares his knowledge with other physicians to reduce the use of opioid prescriptions by substituting other interventional modalities for long term relief, producing an immediate effect as many of these practices saw a dramatic decline in opioid prescriptions by their physicians. Dr. Huang also co-chairs the practice guidelines workgroup within the Northwell Opioid Task Force. He created practice guidelines, controlled substance agreements, and other tools to facilitate best practice opioid use. Those tools are being used across all the communities that Northwell serves to systematically confront the opioid epidemic and helps Northwell Health lead the nation in combating the epidemic in a compassionate and thoughtful way.
Carmen Rodriguez, MD, FACOG
Voluntary Physician, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Long Island Jewish Medical Center
An excellent bedside manner and the care she provides to her patients distinguishes the work of Dr. Carmen Rodriguez and moves many people to say, “She’s the best.” Regarded as reliable, dependable and talented, she is also humble and unpretentious. Dr. Rodriguez leads by example for all clinicians and team members. And her contributions go beyond kindness and compassion. She is known to take on some of the most difficult gynecological challenges via laparotomy, laparoscopic and robotic modalities. Dr. Rodriguez will always fight to defend the reproductive rights of her patients.
Dr. Rodriguez also plays an active role in the affairs and governance of the hospital. She is the associate chair of the Long Island Jewish Medical Center – Performance Improvement
Coordinating Group (LIJMC PICG). She is also a member of the OBGYN department PICG. Dr. Rodriguez finds the time to participate in performance improvement initiatives because she believes that everyone benefits when better care is rendered, mainly for the patient and the community at large, but also for the clinical and administrative team member. She is the president-elect of the LIJ Medical Team member Society, making her the first woman to hold this distinguished position in the history of LIJMC.
Andre Reyes, MD
Hospitalist, North Shore University Hospital
Dr. Andre Reyes has repeatedly impressed patients and team members with his deep commitment to providing personal and compassionate care and setting high standards for others. He has spent countless hours with his patients, making them feel comfortable and at ease regarding their care and the time they will spend in the hospital. Dr. Reyes is known for having dropped to a knee to console the weeping wife of a patient who had taken a turn for the worse, giving her time to compose herself. His commitment to patients contributes to the success of the Care Model Program, which engages all clinical partners in improving patient experiences in the unit. Beyond the emotional value of his compassion, statistics support his approach.
Under his leadership, ratings on clinical quality scorecards, and communication, have risen significantly. Dr. Reyes is also devoted to fostering our medical student education and Internal Medicine Residency program. He is involved in creating and standardizing expectations for residents with regards to their daily rounds and documentation, and sets a personal example by visiting his patients multiple times a day.
Dr. Reyes also took part in the hospital preparation for Magnet certification. He took the initiative to inform himself further on Magnet accreditation standards and met with Magnet evaluators.
Tara Liberman, DO
Associate Chief, Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Long Island Jewish Medical Center
While she has worked in almost every area of health care – post acute, outpatient practice and inpatient care — Dr. Tara Liberman has driven change in geriatric services. She is a proven leader at Northwell, spearheading several initiatives across the heath system to ensure that high-quality, patient-centered care is standard operating procedure. Dr. Liberman’s commitment to patient care began with her Northwell internship year in 2001.
She completed her internal medicine residency and Geriatric Medicine fellowship at North Shore University Hospital. When Palliative Medicine was established as a medicine subspecialty in 2010, Dr. Liberman became board certified in Palliative Medicine as well. In 2010, she received the academic title of assistant professor.
Dr. Liberman has piloted two programs to improve the care and medical literacy of the rapidly growing geriatric population. In response to the “Silver Tsunami,” she began the Geriatric ED program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center (LIJMC), which caters to older adults who arrive in the ED by aiming to prevent unneeded hospital admissions. The ED at LIJMC now has a geriatric-specific social worker to help these patients and their families connect with Northwell resources in the community to ensure appropriate levels of care that are in line with the goals of the patients and families. Dr. Liberman has continued this work to provide specialized care to this vulnerable population in all Northwell EDs by working towards a Geriatric Emergency Department certificate accredited by the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Brian McGinley, MD
Voluntary Physician, Orthopedic Surgery, Mather Hospital
Dr. Brian McGinley takes his orthopedic skills beyond his practice, into an underserved community on Long Island and beyond.
He is part of the medical mission team for Blanca’s House, a local nonprofit organization that brings much-needed, quality medical care to countries and communities throughout Latin
America. During several missions to Ecuador, Dr. McGinley performed more than 75 knee replacement surgeries. In addition to his pro bono medical services, he raises funds for Blanca’s
House by assisting in generating thousands of dollars in philanthropic support to these trips.
On Long Island, he helps at an orthopedic clinic, treating patients who can’t afford care. In his free time, Dr. McGinley volunteers for the local Three Village community sports leagues and has served as a coach and team doctor. He serves president of the Port Jefferson Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC), a consortium of 19 area physicians and Mather Hospital, and was named PGA physician for the U.S. Open in 2002 and 2004.
In 2016, Dr. McGinley was the first surgeon worldwide to perform robotic-assisted total knee replacement with the NavioTM Surgical System, which allows for smaller incisions, less or no cutting of muscles, and no preoperative CT scan. His contributions are limited only by the number of hours in the day.
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