Amanda A.
Amanda A. won our 2021 Hero Award for embodying all of Elara’s core values and keeping the patients at the center of everything she does. Amanda was hired into an office that had high turnover early in 2021. She was the first team member hired and started working solo. We were very upfront with her regarding several upset and dissatisfied patients and wanted her to know that we were committed as a team to rebuild trust and commitment to serve our patients with excellent care. This quickly became Amanda’s number one goal. She drove across our 75-mile rural service area, meeting our patients one by one. Quickly it was evident that patients were happy and had confidence in our service again. Amanda is now the person that trains all new clinicians, being an ambassador for all things positive and Elara. Her commitment to our patients and company is outstanding. Amanda participates in community events, all the sales contests and blitzes, and all the town hall meetings as she wants to represent her team with pride. She truly is committed to excellence. Clinically, she pays attention to her patients’ needs and has been instrumental to assisting getting our patients on new program rollouts. She champions our programs in her daily interactions with the patients. She is instrumental in assisting and improving the rehospitalization of our patients. The retention in this branch is now 100% as new team members hired share Amanda’s mentality of positivity and excellence. This is a very positive work environment. Amanda is truly Elara’s Hero of 2021.

Pamela B.
Our second finalist for the 2021 Hero Award was Pamela B. She has been with the company for 18 years, starting as a Home Health Aid. Pamela advanced her career to LPN and furthered her career to RN. She has gone above and beyond throughout 2021 to ensure all her clients are serviced. She has provided personal care (showering/bathing) for her clients if the aid is not available while completing her nursing visit. She has covered multiple offices and traveled many miles to make sure all clients are well provided for. She has precepted multiple nurses throughout this past year and follows up with them periodically to ensure they are succeeding. She is a great communicator with all staff, case managers and medical practitioner offices and even volunteered to train as a backup Clinical Administrator despite her busy schedule in the field.

 Pete M.
Our third finalist for the 2021 Hero Award was Pete M. He was hired in early 2021 as a travel nurse. Pete is the true hero in Hospice for 2021 as he was traveling all year to support our clinical teams that were short-staffed or out with COVID-19 across our states and branches. In some cases, Pete picked up day shifts for one branch and the weekend afterhours shifts for other branches. He spent time away from his family in 2021 to support our teams and patients during the pandemic nursing shortage. His unfailing commitment to helping branches in need made a lasting positive impact in his travel role at every level within the hospice organization. He even identified opportunities for us to improve our afterhours communication, which positively impacted the employee satisfaction for our afterhours nurses. We couldn’t have done it without him in 2021.

The Sallisaw Hospice Team won the 2021 Q4 Elara Team Quality Award for exhibiting compassion and exemplifying integrity and teamwork through their efforts to help a hospice patient and their family over the holiday season. Our hospice team recognized that 3 weeks away from Christmas that the patient might not make it to the family holiday. They wanted the family to have one last holiday together before their wife and mother passed away. The Sallisaw Hospice Team took it upon themselves and coordinated with community partners of Elara Caring Hospice that support the patient and by pulling together their resources, were able to provide gifts for every member of the family. The teenage children, mom and dad were moved to tears by seeing the gifts they were given by their Hospice Team and Community, who simply loved them as neighbors. The patient did in fact pass away about a week before Christmas. The Sallisaw Team recognized the need, and responding quickly, and very effectively and showed tremendous care, love, and support in helping this family have some meaningful memory amid a difficult circumstance.

Leesa H.
Leesa H., CTM, won the 2021 Q4 Elara Outstanding Service Award for Behavioral Health. She embodies the motto of “working alongside her team” to get the job done. Leesa led her team to a successful year ahead of budget for admissions and census, developing new processes in collaboration with Home Health and creating an environment of excitement for Behavioral Health. Her team says Leesa has created a collegial culture of support, validation, and enthusiasm. During a COVID-19 surge at the end of the year, Leesa and one other RN cared for 60 patients while continuing to manage the daily operations of the team.

Kyle K.
Kyle K., RN, won the 2021 Q4 Elara Outstanding Service Award for Home Health for demonstrating his commitment to provide every patient with the highest quality of care. Kyle was assigned to an afterhours weekend visit. Upon arrival to patient’s home, Kyle noted the patient was on the floor face down. He had to call EMS to assist with getting her upright. Kyle worried her home was not a safe environment and might need a higher level of care. With the patient’s permission he promised to follow up with her later in the day. Over the next several hours, the patient experienced two additional falls and Kyle rushed to her aid. Kyle was able to convince the patient that she needed much more help and the need for full evaluation after 3 falls. The patient agreed, and EMS transported her to the hospital. Kyle was this woman’s hero that night. Kyle was fully committed to ensuring this patients safety through the night and until he could arrange for a higher level of care. Kyle’s dedication to service took him back to the patient’s home that morning and may have saved her life.

Andrew C.
Andrew C., RN, won the 2021 Q4 Elara Outstanding Service Award for Hospice. Drew goes above and beyond to communicate with his team and builds a culture of teamwork with his peers. Drew has been with Elara Caring for 6 months and has been a huge advocate for the organization. He is compassionate about the care he gives and exhibits true empathy for his patients. Recently, his patient needed Respite Level of Care, but she was hesitant to go because she would miss her dog for 5 days. Drew picked up the patient’s dog every day and brought it to the LTC Facility to visit his patient.

Denika S.
Denika S., Attendant, won the 2021 Q4 Elara Outstanding Service Award for Personal Care Services. Denika has been an excellent caregiver with our company for nearly 20 years, and her passion for helping her has never wavered. The most recent example occurred in December when she went above and beyond to help an injured client trapped within a locked home. She not only coordinated with police and family to rescue the client but stayed with the wounded woman throughout the ordeal.

Lisa G.
Lisa G., Travel CTM, won the 2021 Q4 Support Award for traveling from the deep south to the far northeast on short notice to fulfill a clinical manager role and ensure staff had the support they needed to be successful. She has been an awesome leader and source of support for the teams while they recruited for permanent leadership. Lisa continues to have a positive attitude and a servant’s heart. She’s stayed true to exceptional service in constant support of the team ensuring staff and patient needs are always met, even when living in her travel camper through the harsh winter! Lisa is always willing to lend a hand and help however she can, even if it’s an inconvenience for her.

Mikah S.
Mika S., RN, won the Q4 Exceptional Service award for going above and beyond to help a patient with a difficult case. She covered an initial visit out of her area when the assigned nurse was on PTO and kept the patient on her caseload despite the distance and the fact that the patient may have been a better candidate for hospice care. The patient wasn’t ready to transition and Mikah continued treating the patient with dignity, respect, and caring hands until the patient unfortunately had to be discharged to the hospital. Even after that, Mikah exchanged video greetings with the hospitalized patient just to check in and say hi. The patient’s family said it meant the world to him.

Cache K.
Cache K., RN, won the Integrity Award for Q4. She coordinated investigative efforts with a physician outside of her normal scope of services to determine the cause of a new patient’s injury, which lead to finding of abuse. Cache notified all parties of their findings to ensure that clinicians and the patient remained safe. Her efforts went beyond just taking care of the patient’s health. She is a shining example of what integrity means at Elara, and as a preceptor for new nurses, she takes her time passing on her knowledge of how to always do the right thing.

Katrina L.
Katrina L., Talent Acquisition Specialist, won the Q4 Teamwork award for stepping up to volunteer to cover additional territories as the primary recruiter for caregivers, despite a shortage on the TA team. During Q4, Katrina covered her main state along with the states of Indiana, Michigan, and Missouri, helping her teammates with their bandwidth and executing hires resulting in achieving not only her individual goals, but team goals as well. Her genuine willingness to help any time asked is outstanding.

Monica B.
Monica B., Field Supervisor, won the Results Award for Q4. Monica joined the company as a PCA and quickly advanced to a SCA position. During that time, she showed exceptional service to clients and excellent communication. When an office position opened, her team felt she would be the perfect fit. After joining the office, she took on all 16 counties by herself and still brought on several Private Pay clients each month and while keeping the branch numbers in the 90% range. Monica helped her team meet their goal of servicing over 400 clients by the end of the year.

Kristen M. & Rob N.
The Q4 Innovation Award was given to two winners who collaborated on the same initiative, Kristen M., Manager of Operations Strategy and Execution & Rob N., Director of Business Solutions. Together, Kristen and Rob designed a new tool that serves as a single source for Intake, Insurance, Sales, Branches, and other areas to find central information and reports. Rob built the tool and Kristen designed the content, processes, and change management. The tool has improved both day-to-day lives of our team members as well as onboarding. Kristen and Rob have saved time, increased quality, and improved team member experience at Elara.