Methodist Hospitals honored 286 employees by recognizing their dedication and commitment to the mission of Methodist Hospitals at their annual Service Awards Banquet. The 2016 Service Award Banquet, honoring employees who have reached five-year service milestones of five years or longer. More than 400 people were on hand to celebrate the contributions these employees have made to the success of Methodist Hospitals.
At this event we also honor our Employee of the Year, Leader of the Year, Humanitarian of the Year, and Safety Star of the Year, for serving as exemplars of our values and vision. This year the winners of the awards were Emily Nieto, Employee of the Year; Rev. Dr. David Neville, Leader of the Year; Lisa Montagano, Humanitarian of the Year; and Jacqueline Cooper– Safety Star of the Year.
Methodist Hospitals’ executive team and members from the Board of Directors personally thanked each employee for their years of service. This year’s banquet celebration was held at the Avalon Manor in Merrillville on Friday, March 18, 2016.
Emily Nieto - Employee of the Year
Emily continually impresses others with her vivacious enthusiasm and always encourages others to do their very best to ensure quality care. She has an ability to make every patient experience unique. She has an unsurpassed ability to connect with patients, and her manager regularly receives unsolicited praise from past patients commending their outstanding level of service. She is a strong team- player mind-set, an enthusiastic embrace of change, the ability to work with minimal supervision and an unwavering commitment to exceeding the expectations of patients, their families and nursing leadership. Emily is a top performer who often volunteers for extra projects. For example, she has taken the lead on the Unit Based Excellence Team. She has also helped motivate and inspire her peers to create better workflow processes and improve patient outcomes, and is the unit Magnet representative working to educate staff on the Magnet Journey. She is a fairly new member of the Perinatal team whose presence every day is a reminder of how important a positive mind frame is in achieving a positive outcome.
Rev. Dr. David Neville - Leader of the Year
Rev. Dr. David Neville has been an important member of the Methodist Hospitals Family for more than a decade. In his daily life and service to Methodist Hospitals, he has been a constant model for all who wish to make service to others a life goal. He is an exceptional leader as well as a reliable teammate, and exudes both confidence and humility, both competence and compassion, both vision and a pragmatic approach.
With an unswerving commitment to patients, families, our employees and the community at large, he teaches by both word and example. He is a department director, a committee chair, a pastor, a coach, a friend and mentor to many both inside and outside the Methodist organization. When he made the choice years ago to leave the business world and follow the path illuminated by his faith, he made a decision that brought him to Methodist Hospitals.
Lisa Montagano - Humanitarian of the Year
Lisa has made helping others a priority not just in her career as a pediatric nurse but also in her commitment to volunteer and mentoring activities in the community. She has raised funds for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and has worked with “The Modified Dolls”, an organization dedicated to raising funds for a variety of causes and to changing stereotypes of tattooed and pierced women in the workplace. She mentors a group of runners training for half-marathons and works as a volunteer coach for “Girls on the Run”, a group for girls in the 3rd through 8th grades that focuses on positive development through running, with the goal of building girls’ confidence and establishing a lifetime appreciation of health and fitness. She is also a volunteer for the Crisis Text Line, where she has helped more than 150 texters deal with a wide variety of crises, ranging from suicidal thoughts, to sexual abuse, to substance abuse and eating disorders, enabling them to move from a hot moment to a cool calm.
Jacqueline Cooper - Safety Star of the Year
Jackie is recognized for her vigilance, questioning attitude and the actions she took to prevent patient harm. While on duty in the pharmacy, Jackie received a medication order for BCG, a rarely used medication for the treatment of early-stage bladder cancer, even though the patient’s medical record did not note any history of bladder cancer. Rather than fill an order that she had questions about, she contacted the physician who had written the order and found out that the physician had not intended to order a medication at all but rather had wanted to order a lab test – a CBC, or complete blood count. The error that had occurred was a typo in the order for the CBC that had been auto-corrected by the electronic health record to BCG, turning the order for a lab test into an order for a cancer medication. Jackie’s questioning attitude and critical thinking skills prevented the patient from being administered an unnecessary medication and from experiencing the potential side effects of that medication.