Abigail Hoover Named DAISY Nurse for Impressive Patient Care

Congratulations Abigail Hoover, RN, for being named a DAISY Award winner!

Abigail works in the SICU in Hot Springs. She was nominated by a coworker for her inspirational work with a suicidal patient.

This patient had no way of communicating verbally as he had a trach and tube in his mouth. He had “fired” his previous nurse and was very agitated and frustrated. However, when Abby came in, she did everything right.

“I’ve worked beside some nurses that after 30 minutes of being in a patient room, they’re a little upset about how much time was spent on one patient, but what I really want to point out is, I watched Abby take care of this patient for 1 hour 45 minutes, if not 2 hours. This is after she had already been in there several times throughout the night already,” said the coworker who nominated Abby.

During her time in the patient’s room, Abby was constantly suctioning, adjusting his pillows and she even found a better way to communicate with him. He had a lot of questions about his long-term outcome and she was very honest with him. Abby was able to make him laugh and even learned about his life.

“After the patient had thanked her, she just was like, ‘sometimes to take care of a patient, you have to really spend time with them.’ And she did! A LOT. She really defined the word nurse for me. I think it’s one thing to take care of a patient and it’s another for them to truly feel cared for. I got off that day and thought to myself, ‘I want to be a nurse like that.’ The posture of her heart is amazing for our patients and I do think CHI St. Vincent is lucky to have her.”