February: Ericka Dries, LCSW, Bryn Brendamour, FNP, Yunira Gomez, RN
I’d like to nominate Ericka Dries, Bryn Brendamour and Yunira Gomez for exemplary care. Ericka was meeting this week with one of her patients who is in high school. In the counseling session, her patient expressed worry that she might be pregnant. Ericka was able to consult with Basalt medical provider Bryn, who fit the patient into her schedule that day for a confidential visit. When the pregnancy test was positive, our Basalt nurse Yunira was able to spend a lot of time providing information and support to the patient – who does not have available family support currently — regarding her options. Ericka has followed up to schedule the patient for further counseling support. Ericka’s relationship with the patient helped her to open up about her concerns and being able to access care the same day and confidentially, allowed this patient to get the information and services needed to address her reproductive health in a timely way and in a caring atmosphere.
-Sara Jacobs, LCSW, AC
March: Kaitlyn Kropf, CPNP-PC
Kaitlyn strikes again. While she is always providing excellent care to our pediatric patients, she is also establishing collaborative relationships with our community partners through persistence and expertise. Recently, a newborn patient was assessed at birth and found to have decreased bilateral femoral pulses but had not received an echocardiogram while they were an inpatient. Kaitlyn saw the same patient for their newborn visit and, while palpable, could corroborate decreased bilateral femoral pulses. In these cases, we worry about congenital heart disease and babies with this finding should be worked up. Kaitlyn was able to contact the on-call provider at Pediatric Partners who then referred her to the cardiologist at Valley View Hospital. Initially, the cardiology team declined to conduct an echo due to their policy requiring the patient be admitted. Kaitlyn was able to effectively and efficiently collaborate with the on-call pediatric provider and the CMO to admit her newborn as an outpatient in consultation with Children’s Hospital in order to receive necessary imaging and interpretation. All of this ended in good news for the patient and their family. In further good news, Kaitlyn has opened a door to services we have previously had difficulty accessing and established what will hopefully continue to be a collaborative partnership with Valley View Hospital in great benefit to our shared pediatric patient population and to our community as a whole.
-McKenzie Rieder, CPNP-PC, School-Based Health Centers Nurse Practitioner
April: Hilary Feller, PA-C
I would like to nominate Hilary Feller for our exemplary care award. She has been caring for an extremely complex case involving a gentleman in his early 60s who established care with her after he was hospitalized for over a week in February for necrotizing pneumonia and a pulmonary embolism. Patient is self-pay and has limited resources and a complex work schedule, and Hilary has worked with him to ensure appropriate follow up and management of his anticoagulation, prolonged antibiotic course via PICC line and other studies and management recommended by pulmonary and infectious disease specialists. This was all accomplished over 8 office visits and countless phone calls to the patient and specialists to coordinate care in the 6 weeks since he was discharged from the hospital. Hilary was able to do all of this in patient’s preferred language of Spanish thanks to her excellent Spanish skills. The patient is now doing well, off antibiotics and Hilary is working with our pharmacy team to get him on an affordable anticoagulant that requires less frequent monitoring. Kudos to Hilary for her exemplary care the Avon team and MFHC in general is lucky to have her as a provider and I am proud to have her as a colleague!
–Matt Percy, MD, Co-Chief Medical Officer and Rifle Site Medical Director