Honor Comes During Nurses Week
ROME, Ga., May 11, 2023 – Grayson Moss, an ICU nurse at Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center, was named the 2023 DAISY of the Year winner during a luncheon held Wednesday.
The honor comes during Nurses Week, observed every May to pay tribute to the hard work and dedication that nurses exhibit all year long caring for patients.
The DAISY Award is an international program that recognizes bedside nurses. The family of Patrick Barnes established the award after he died from an auto-immune disease while being treated in a Seattle hospital.
Sheila Bennett, senior vice president and chief of patient services at Floyd, presented Moss with the award.
She pointed out that the award is unique because the monthly DAISY winners have to be nominated by a patient or the family member of a patient.
“That is how you know the award is genuine," Bennett said. “Often the patients are scared and their family members can be as well when they are in the hospital. This award means you can know that you made a difference."
Moss, a registered nurse, started working at Atrium Health Floyd as a nurse technician while he was in nursing school. He completed nursing school in May of 2022 and started in ICU later last year. He was first named a monthly DAISY winner this past March.
His demeanor meant a lot a woman who was at the hospital during her aunt's final days.
"It's never easy to lose a family member," the woman wrote in a form nominating Moss for a DAISY Award. “This nurse will never know how much his kindness meant."
Moss said he realizes that to be a good nurse, you have to be sensitive to the needs of the patient as well as family members.
“You are caring primarily for the patient, but you have to remember that often you are caring for the family too," Moss said. “Sometimes they can be frightened and want to know what is going on."
About Atrium Health Floyd
The Atrium Health Floyd family of health care services is a leading medical provider and economic force in northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama. Atrium Health Floyd is part of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Advocate Health, the fifth-largest nonprofit health system in the United States, created from the combination of Atrium Health and Advocate Aurora Health. Atrium Health Floyd employs more than 3,5 00 teammates who provide care in over 40 medical specialties at three hospitals: Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center – a 304-bed full-service, acute care hospital and regional referral center in Rome, Georgia; Atrium Health Floyd Polk Medical Center in Cedartown, Georgia; and Atrium Health Floyd Cherokee Medical Center in Centre, Alabama; as well as Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center Behavioral Health – a freestanding 53-bed behavioral health facility in Rome – and also primary care and urgent care network locations throughout northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama.
About Advocate Health
Advocate Health is the fifth-largest nonprofit integrated health system in the United States – created from the combination of Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health. Providing care under the names Advocate Health Care in Illinois, Atrium Health in the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama, and Aurora Health Care in Wisconsin, Advocate Health is a national leader in clinical innovation, health outcomes, consumer experience and value-based care, with Wake Forest University School of Medicine serving as the academic core of the enterprise. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Advocate Health serves nearly 6 million patients and is engaged in hundreds of clinical trials and research studies. It is nationally recognized for its expertise in cardiology, neurosciences, oncology, pediatrics and rehabilitation, as well as organ transplants, burn treatments and specialized musculoskeletal programs. Advocate Health employs nearly 150,000 team members across 67 hospitals and over 1,000 care locations and offers one of the nation's largest graduate medical education programs with over 2,000 residents and fellows across more than 200 programs. Committed to equitable care for all, Advocate Health provides nearly $5 billion in annual community benefits.