“Award recognizes extraordinary nurses “Words cannot express how amazing Ruben is to his patients and visiting family,” writes the wife of a patient at Orlando Health South Lake Hospital when nominating Ruben Perez, RN for the Daisy Award. On Friday, May 12, Rubin was honored as the Daisy Award recipient with a special certificate, a lapel pin and a ‘Healer’s Touch’ sculpture to symbolize his extraordinary contribution to the nursing profession. In keeping with the Daisy Award tradition, cinnamon rolls were provided for all of the nurses on his unit to celebrate the entire team.
As a nurse on the hospital’s clinical decision unit (CDU) for nearly four years, Ruben provides compassionate comprehensive care to patients who present in the emergency department. His responsibilities include assessing patient care needs, prioritizing patients based on acuity level and assisting physicians during examinations, treatments and procedures.
“Ruben is a winner,” said Alisa Lewis, RN, nursing operations manager, Orlando Health South Lake CDU. “Not only does he care for patients and families who are often distressed about their loved ones being in the hospital, he also serves as a preceptor, helping to train new RNs or those new to this unit.”
The Daisy Award was established in 1999 by the Daisy Foundation, an organization also founded that year to honor compassionate nurses, thereby reinforcing the importance of compassion in healthcare and shining a light on what is right with nursing. The award recognizes nurses for six specific qualities: 1) passion for nursing or the care provided, 2) empathy, 3) trust/teamwork of patient, family and peers, 4) admirable attributes, 5) love for patients and the nursing profession and 6) selflessness.
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About Orlando Health
Orlando Health, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is a not-for-profit healthcare organization with $8.1 billion of assets under management that serves the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico.
Founded more than 100 years ago, the healthcare system is recognized around the world for Central Florida’s only pediatric and adult Level I Trauma program as well as the only state-accredited Level II Adult Trauma Center in Pinellas County. It is the home of the nation’s largest neonatal intensive care unit under one roof, the only system in the southeast to offer open fetal surgery to repair the most severe forms of spina bifida, the site of an Olympic athlete training facility and operator of one of the largest and highest performing clinically integrated networks in the region. Orlando Health has pioneered life-changing medical research and its Graduate Medical Education program hosts more than 350 residents and fellows.
The 3,238-bed system includes 23 hospitals and emergency departments – 18 of which are currently operational with five coming soon. The system also includes nine specialty institutes, more than 100 adult and pediatric primary care practices, skilled nursing facilities, an in-patient behavioral health facility under the management of Acadia Healthcare, and more than 60 outpatient facilities that include imaging and laboratory services, wound care centers, home healthcare services in partnership with LHC Group, and urgent care centers in partnership with FastMed Urgent Care. More than 4,000 physicians, representing more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties have privileges across the Orlando Health system, which employs more than 25,000 team members and more than 1,200 physicians.
In FY22, Orlando Health served nearly 142,000 inpatients and 3.9 million outpatients. The healthcare system provided more than $782 million in total value to the communities it serves in the form of charity care, community benefit programs and services, community-building activities and more in FY 21, the most recent period for which this information is available.
