Brooke Fogle’s Heart for Humankindness Earns Her a Service Hero Award

Congratulations Brooke Fogle, Nurse Practitioner, for being named an Infirmary Service Hero!

Brooke works with Advanced Heart Failure patients and was nominated by a coworker for this award.

The coworker said Brooke is someone who is always putting in the work and going above and beyond for her patients, however, there was a particular patient in which she exceeded all expectations of her role.

This patient was a 36-year-old dealing with end-stage heart failure. She needed a heart transplant or LVAD, but ultimately did not qualify for these advanced therapies at CHI St. Vincent. The coworker said the patient was left with only one option, and that was to go home on medication.

Due to this patient’s insurance issues, social work was having a hard time finding any home health or home IV company to agree to take her on as a patient. Brooke spent days calling all different home health and home IV services. She updated the patient daily on her progress. Brooke contacted the patient’s primary care physician and got them to agree to check her labs weekly and change her PICC line dressing. She ultimately found her an IV infusion company that would accept her as a patient in their area.

Brooke later learned the patient’s only option for advanced therapy with a transplant would be with another local hospital. Brooke used her connections to make arrangements for the patient to be seen by that team as an outpatient.

“This is a patient that many others recommended hospice/palliative care on due to the difficulties that arose and Brooke refused to take no for an answer. Without her persistence and determination, this patient could have easily succumbed to death due to her disease process. This is just an example of all the hard work and passion Brooke has for this job and her patients.”