Lange Recognized With Avera Sacred Heart Hospital DAISY Award

Avera Sacred Heart Hospital is pleased to announce that Rhea Lange, 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.

Lange serves as a coordinated care case manager at Avera Medical Group clinics in Creighton, Crofton, Hartington, Niobrara, Pierce and Verdigre. She joined the organization in 2018.

“To think I was even nominated for the DAISY Award is an incredible honor. I was speechless,” Lange said. “I am extremely lucky that I get to work with so many amazing providers and nurses at Avera Medical Group, both in Yankton and the northeast Nebraska clinics.”

Coordinated care helps patients to address barriers to their health.

“As a coordinated care nurse case manager, I get the opportunity to work closely with patients to address the clinical and non-clinical factors that influence their health,” Lange said.

“Lange has been key to bringing value to our program with both providers and patients,” said Jodi Kubal, the Avera Medical Group clinic manager who nominated Lange after seeing how she has built the coordinated care program up in her time with the organization. “Our providers now often say, ‘We don't know what we would do without Rhea and coordinated care.’ Our patients share the same sentiment. She has a phenomenal way of creating a connection and trusting relationship with her clients.”

Kubal shared a story of how Lange was able to help a diabetes patient who lacked a strong support system at home and was struggling to manage his disease.

“Rhea spent countless hours working with the patient on his diet and medication plan to manage his diabetes,” she stated, adding that Lange has made a tremendous effort to educate herself about diabetes so she can provide evidence-based care to patients. “She was able to encourage and educate him on using a continuous glucose monitoring system through an app on his phone. She opened a whole new world to this patient. He became compliant with checking his blood sugars because it was so much easier for him.”

Kubal said that Lange is an inspiration in the nursing field.

“Her compassion is beyond measure,” she stated.

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.