FirstHealth of the Carolinas nurse Audrianna Funkhouser, BSN, R.N., has been honored with the DAISY Award for April 2021.
Funkhouser, who works in labor and delivery as a “stork nurse,” was nominated for the award by a coworker. Stork nurses care for newborn babies and assess their health at the time of delivery. They also help with breastfeeding, administering any necessary medications and much more.
“Being a stork nurse may sound easy and fun, but I assure you, it is very stressful, and our unit could not function without them,” the coworker who nominated Funkhouser wrote in a nomination letter. “While all our stork nurses are great, Audrianna consistently provides exceptional care. On any given night she cares for six or seven newborns. Audrianna is one of the best and definitely deserving of a DAISY Award.”
Lara Vance, BSN, RNC-EFM, Funkhouser’s manager, said that she is “everything a mother would want as their baby arrives into the world.”
“Audrianna is compassionate, caring, knowledgeable and calm under pressure,” Vance said. “Not only does she go the extra mile for her patients, but her coworkers as well. We are truly fortunate to have such a fabulous nurse and person on our team.”
The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses was established by the Daisy Foundation, a not-for-profit, based in Glen Ellen, Calif. The foundation was started by family members in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, who died at the age of 33 from complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, a little-known but not uncommon auto-immune disease.
The care Barnes and his family received from nurses inspired this unique means of thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and patients’ families. Today, there are more than 2,800 health care facilities in all 50 states and 17 other countries honoring their nurses with the DAISY Award.
Feature photo: Beth Tabor, BSN, RNC-OB, C-EFM, administrative director of FirstHealth Women & Children’s department; DAISY award winner Audrianna Funkhouser, BSN, R.N.; Lara Vance, BSN, RNC-EFM; and Deana Kearns, MSN, R.N., administrative director of corporate education and clinical practice.
Courtesy photo/Contributed.
