The DAISY Award nurse honorees at Bridgton Hospital personify remarkable patient experience. DAISY Award nurses consistently demonstrate excellence through their clinical expertise and extraordinary compassionate care, and they are recognized as outstanding role models in our nursing community.
Bridgton Hospital presented its most recent DAISY Award to Jessica McLaughlin, RN. In the words of her peers, “Jessica has the innate ability to handle any situation that arises with genuine compassion and professionalism.”
McLaughlin is a compassionate patient advocate who goes above and beyond for her patients their families, considering it “just part of my job.” In addition to her exemplary patient care, McLaughlin consistently supports her peers and demonstrates many DAISY qualities every day.
As a DAISY Award Honoree, Jessica was presented a bouquet of daisies, a DAISY certificate, a DAISY Award pin, and a hand-carved stone sculpture entitled A Healer’s Touch. Additionally, everyone in attendance celebrated with specially made cinnamon rolls. The significance of the cinnamon rolls is that Mr. Barnes especially enjoyed sharing cinnamon rolls with his nurses, and his family felt this should be a part of the ceremonies across the country.
The DAISY Foundation was established in Glen Ellen, California, in 1999 by the family of J. Patrick Barnes who died of complications of the auto-immune disease Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Purpura (ITP) at the age of 33. (DAISY is an acronym for diseases attacking the immune system.) During Mr. Barnes eight week hospitalization, his family was awestruck by the care and compassion his nurses at his hospital provided not only to him but to everyone in his family. So one of the goals they set in creating a Foundation in his memory was to recognize extraordinary nurses everywhere who make an enormous difference in the lives of so many people by the super-human work they do every day.