On December 12, Michigan Medicine was filled with celebration, hope, and joy. The annual Evan Newport HOPE and JOY awards — honoring individuals and teams who have gone above and beyond in their daily work to embrace the principles of patient and family centered care — took place Wednesday afternoon to a packed crowd in Ford Auditorium.
The awards are named after Evan Newport, who was a patient at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital for the first 252 days of his life. The care team that enabled Evan to lead a happy childhood in the face of health care challenges inspired his father, Scott, and brother, Noah, to found the HOPE Awards program. The HOPE Awards have been presented annually since 2009.
Chief Patient Experience Officer Keith Gran congratulated all nominees on their commitment to the patient and family experience.
“I’m proud to work alongside these individuals and teams who go over and beyond for our patients and families,” said Gran. “The nominees, finalists and winners are truly deserving of this honor.”
Patients, families, staff, and faculty submitted more than 100 nominations, which were then narrowed down to a list of finalists.
The awards committee selected four HOPE award winners and two JOY award winners, given to volunteer patient and family advisors. To learn more about the winners of the Evan Newport JOY Award and Celeste Castillo Lee Peer Mentor Award, click here.
Congratulations to all the winners, finalists, and nominees.
2018 HOPE Award Winners
Ella Sandefur, Unit Host, University Hospital Unit 6C
Ella is described by her patients and colleagues as a person that not only can “get things done," but also someone that constantly goes the extra mile to see that people’s needs are truly met. She is the person that is looking out for the million “little things” that add up to something big – spending time with patients that have no family or friends visiting, encouraging and supporting the nursing staff during their difficult parts of the day, and always listening and then acting to bring resources to the people that need them most. She not only does her job exceptionally well, but she continually goes another step to practice unbridled kindness to each individual patients and family member– and looks for ways to make lasting and unit-wide improvements that will benefit all.
Halley Crissman, MD, MPH, House Officer, Obstetrics & Gynecology
Dr. Crissman has a daily goal to make certain that her patients know she is on their team and supports them. In her practice, she became aware that transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in our communities face numerous barriers to health care, including violence and discrimination. In order to improve the care of individuals of all genders across our health system, she applied for and received a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Mini-Grant from the Office of Health Equity and Inclusion (OHEI) to create job-specific video training to improve staff comfort and competency in care for and serving gender diverse patients and visitors. The videos are one small step towards ensuring that patients and visitors of all genders feel safe and Respected, but have already brought to light other opportunities to improve experiences for people of all genders at Michigan Medicine.
Office of Medical Student Education, University of Michigan Medical School
As the concept of patient-centered care is now considered an essential aspiration of high-quality health care systems, the training of physicians has begun to adapt. But the University of Michigan Medical School recognized that this critical shift requires a better balance between knowledge and communication and humanism, and needs to include the patient voice in developing and evaluating it. In response, UMMS has become a leader in engaging patients and families in authentic medical education roles such as executive decision making, curriculum design, and teaching, a new and innovative model for medical education. The Office of Medical Student Education works with our patients and families as true collaborators in medical education, and authentically bring the patient and family voice into how our students learn, and how they develop as humanistic professionals.
Interdisciplinary Pediatric Feeding Program
Parents regularly share that they were losing hope that things would improve with their children’s ability to be nourished when they were made aware of the feeding clinic at Mott Children’s Hospital. This wonderful team has a history of making sure that their families feel heard and validated, and then work diligently to care for their children. With the aim to help their patients reach their potential, and to improve quality of life for the patients and their families, this team goes above offering good care – they create individualized plans, and take what they learn to further engage and incorporate the feedback into programmatic improvements. This team works with families to organize events to support other families whose children have feeding disorders, and to identify new models of care that will allow them to prevent feeding disorders in family friendly ways - including providing feeding services through video visits and integrating feeding providers into patients’ specialty care medical homes
2018 HOPE Award Finalists
Individual Finalists - Children's, Women's, and Psychiatry Services
- Leigh Baguley, RN – Registered Nurse, UMH 9C Psychiatry
- Paula Crosby-Flake – Unit Host, Mott 7E
- Austin Michalski, RDN, CNSC – Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, C&W Nutrition Services
- Shannan Shaw – PFCC Coordinator, Mott Congenital Heart Center
Individual Finalists - Adult Services
- Kathy Kasperski, RN – Registered Nurse, University Hospital Unit 5D Surgical Intensive Care Unit
- Sandra Kendziora, RN – Nursing Supervisor, University Hospital Unit 6B
- Rafina Khateeb, MD, MBA, SFHM – Faculty Hospitalist/Director for Clinical Strategy, Division of Hospital Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine
- Gregory Lambert, MA – Administrative Manager, Entrance Services
Team Finalists - Children's, Women's, and Psychiatry Services
- Child & Family Life Department
- Congenital Heart Center Neurodevelopmental Care Initiative Team
- Pediatric Urology Department
Team Finalists - Adult Services
- Advocates for Cardiac Rehabilitation - Group Orientation
- Emergency Critical Care Center (EC3) Leadership Team
- Patient Safety Event Team
To learn more about Evan Newport and the history of the HOPE and JOY awards, click here.