Avera St. Anthony's Receives Multiple Awards At 13th Annual Healthcare Service Excellence Conference

Representatives of Avera St. Anthony's Hospital accepted the prestigious international Summit Award for recognition of their Exceptional Nurse and OASIS Team at the 13th annual Healthcare Service Excellence Conference, held January 21-23in New Orleans, LA.

The three-day forum was a gathering of healthcare leaders from across the continent, to discuss and showcase innovative methods to improve the patient experience.

The Exceptional Nurse award recognizes Sue Pongratz for providing outstanding levels of compassion and quality care.  A coworker commented, "Sue truly cares for her patients, when they call she is always willing to take time to either speak with them about their concerns or to return their calls in a timely manner.  She is concerned about their well being and never avoids an opportunity to answer their questions and concerns, whether she is in the clinic or in the community.  I believe her patients feel her concern for them and appreciate her accessibility, because they call, stop by the clinic or stop her in the grocery store, and she really listens to them to meet their needs."

The OASIS Team award recognizes an innovative group of leaders working together to effect improvement.  A group of Avera St. Anthony's employees came together to form the "Way Finding team".  This team worked to create maps and signage that help patients as they walk through the newly redesigned facility. Liz Peterson noted, "Patients are often already in a stressful and uncomfortable situation when they are visiting the hospital so the OASIS team focused on making the patients' and family members' visit to the hospital as comfortable as possible. Patients do not need added stress by being lost in a large facility."  

Brian Lee, CSP, founder of the Healthcare Service Excellence Conference, said that "the Summit Award is our highest award of excellence.  It is awarded only to highly qualified, innovative, and progressive individuals, and healthcare facilities who have made outstanding progress improving the patient experience and staff engagement." 

The Healthcare Service Excellence Conference is dedicated to delivering evidence based solutions to help hospitals, senior facilities, and clinics to improve the patient service.