Heine Recognized With Avera Sacred Heart Hospital DAISY Award

Carrie Heine with Family

Avera Sacred Heart Hospital is pleased to announce that Carrie Heine, RN, is the most recent recipient of our quarterly nurse recognition program called the DAISY Award.

The DAISY Program honors and celebrates the skillful and compassionate care nurses provide every day. DAISY is an acronym for “Diseases Attacking the Immune System.” The DAISY Award has grown into a meaningful recognition program embraced by health care organizations around the world, including multiple Avera facilities.

Nurses at any Avera Sacred Heart facilities are eligible to receive the DAISY Award.

“Winning the Daisy Award is a reflection of and a compliment to every staff member and department I work with at the hospital. I am so thankful to have spent the majority of my nursing career at Avera Sacred Heart,” said Heine, who works in the Intensive Care Unit and has been an RN for almost 45 years – 33 of which have been at Avera Sacred Heart. “Nursing has been a calling with which I can share my gifts with others. The strengths of my faith, family and friends have allowed me to fulfill my call to nursing and serve the many patients and families I have encountered over my career.”

Heine was nominated by the daughter of a patient who was facing a life-threatening situation.

“My dad came home from work feeling normal but, out of the blue, his left side under his ribcage started to hurt. We were all very worried for my dad, so my mom took him to the hospital,” the daughter wrote. “The doctor told my mom that they had to perform emergency surgery, otherwise he was going to die. His spleen had ruptured, and he was bleeding internally.”

Heine was there for every moment, the daughter continued, and was intentional about communicating with her dad, who is deaf.

“She enunciated more with him and wrote notes so he could understand what was happening and would know that he was going to be OK,” she wrote. “Carrie is committed to her job and to helping others. She's phenomenal and easy to ask questions. I'm so very thankful.”

Heine said she approaches each patient and their loved ones as she would her own family. 

“I remind myself that the patient I'm caring for that day could be my own family member, struggling with pain, addiction or the inability to communicate,” she stated. “The family that nominated me was very special. They used sign language as a gift of love to one another, instead of a burden! They were a joy to care for, and I'm deeply touched and grateful that they nominated me for the Daisy Award after caring for their loved one.” 

A committee of community members and Avera employees evaluates the DAISY Award nominations and selects a winner every quarter.

The DAISY Foundation was established by family members in memory of J. Patrick Barnes. Patrick died at age 33 in 1999 from complications of the auto-immune disease Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP). The care Patrick and his family received from nurses while he was ill inspired this unique means of thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and patient families.

For more information, visit DaisyFoundation.org.

Anyone who has had a positive nursing care experience can nominate a deserving nurse for a DAISY award by filling out the online form at DAISYnomination.org/4381.