Endowment created for Patient-Centered Care Awards at UK HealthCare
By Josh Shepherd
Each year in the life of UK HealthCare, there are moments in which physicians and staff exemplify the very best aspects of patient and family-centered care. Dr. Sibu Saha, division chief of UK Cardiothoracic Surgery, wants to do more than just recognize those exceptional moments – he wants to reward them. In that spirit, he has created an endowment to fund a set of annual awards called The Saha Patient-Centered Care Awards.
“Putting care for the patient above all is an extremely important concept, especially in academic medicine,” said Dr. Saha. The awards will recognize extraordinary moments of patient-centered care at all levels of patient encounters, from registration to discharge, as examples for staff to emulate.
Awards of at least $500 will be presented in one of four categories:
- A clinical faculty member in the rank of assistant professor,
- A clinical care nurse,
- An ambulatory clinic staff member, and
- A clinical support team member or OR technician.
The first awards will be presented in the early spring of 2017, according to Angela Lang, Enterprise Director of the Office of Patient Experience at UK HealthCare. The office will coordinate the process of selecting award recipients. Commenting on the Saha Awards, Lang said that the process of selecting candidates for consideration is underway based on accounts from 2016.
Candidates will be chosen from confirmed accounts of exceptional patient care that the Office of Patient Experience has collected throughout the year via patient letters, team member emails, patient satisfaction surveys and other reports, Lang said.
A selection committee of five senior leaders will make the final determination of award recipients. A large plaque will be located in a highly visible area of the hospital denoting the annual winners of the Patient-Centered Care awards.
Additional details for this first round of awards will be released later this month, Lang said. When the recipients are selected, they will be honored in a public ceremony at UK Chandler Medical Center.
