Once a year for the past seven years, our community of hospitals in Southern California comes together to honor the most giving of themselves, the laborers of the planet.  Okay, so we are a little biased about the people working in our hospitals. Here are but five of the extraordinary people we honored last week along with their stories.

Our first award went to a nurse and social worker on the front lines of a busy hospital who teamed up to fix a problem that plagues emergency rooms everywhere … frequent fliers. 

This unlikely pair took it upon themselves to determine the reason so many patients were chronic users of their emergency room.  They tediously studied the medical records of these patients and determined that care coordination was the cure for chronic E.R. use.  So, the nurse and social worker created patient-centered care plans for over 400 children and more than 60 adults. 

By finding medical homes for their patients, Laurie Biscaro, RN, and Sal Robledo, LCSW, reduced the overuse of the E.R. at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital by 81 percent and saved over $1.5 million dollars. Now that’s how you do health care reform for real!

Many of our past awardees are committed people who give of themselves above and beyond the call of duty.  Our next honoree most certainly represented his class. Like his predecessors, he has committed much of his life to serving others, often at great peril, sometimes with great sacrifice, but always with respect for their humanity.

Indeed, John Morris, RN, Desert Valley Hospital, inspires us all with his dedication and selfless service to others.  While on a two-year assignment serving as a volunteer ICU clinical instructor in Ghana, this nurse and his wife were struck by the suffering and needs of the people they were helping, so much so that they stayed for 10 years. Their legacy is a home they founded that houses over 100 orphans today.

We even had an honoree with the X Factor.  Along with his positive attitude and charming sense of humor, Jared Axon, RN, Henry Mayo Newhall Medical Center, uses his beautiful singing voice to reach his patients in powerful and unforgettable ways.

Jared has been singing all his life and feels blessed to be able to use his gift to help his patients. He will hold their hands as he sings which puts the patient in a “different place” for just a few minutes, providing relief, and leaving a lasting impact.

Patients know of the singing nurse and often have requests. When Jared sang recently for one of his patients, the family made a recording, which the patient carried with her wherever she went. It was a song she and her husband listened to often. The last email Jared received from the family asked that he come to her funeral and sing, which he did.

Jared performs in concerts around the world, but it is singing to patients one on one that is most gratifying and fulfilling for him.

As everybody knows, there is much more to hospital care than what clinicians provide. At Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in San Pedro, Laurent Gueris, manager of Environmental Services, is proof that patient care is the responsibility of everyone working in our hospitals.

Laurent wanted to enhance the role he and his department plays in improving the patient experience. He thought of the downcast eyes and silence he’d seen as staffers cleaned patient rooms, and decided to show them what patients were seeing.

Laurent began role-playing with his housekeeping staff, videotaping them as they simulated cleaning rooms.  Watching themselves on TV, they saw what Laurent had seen. The revelations were startling and helped these workers realize the importance of eye contact with patients, flashing a smile and, when appropriate, conversing with them. Since creating his training program, housekeeping personnel now knock on patients’ doors, introduce themselves, offer cards – printed each day of the week with a different flower – and ask patients if they need anything.

“The executive teams round on patients, and we hear how friendly and kind these workers are and how efficient they are in cleaning the rooms and making the room more pleasant,” Mary Jane Jones, chief nursing officer, said. “He uses a script in this training,” she continued, “but doesn’t want workers to come across as robotic.”

What Laurent found was that the exercise brought out his employees’ innate compassion, giving them confidence to open up to patients.

Lastly, many who work for hospitals also protect our country as military personnel.

Dr. Richard Guerrero, M.D., Huntington Beach Hospital, joined the Army Reserves just 10 days after September 11. His recruiter asked him, “Do you still want to do this?” The answer of course was a resounding, “Yes.”

Dr. Guerrero’s first deployment was to Al Asad, Iraq in January 2008. He returned from his deployment in May that same year, began his general surgery practice in Orange County and was deployed again December 2010 to March 2011 to Mosul in northern Iraq. He will deploy yet again next October, this time to Kuwait where he will care for troops returning home from Afghanistan.

Despite the difficulties of restarting his private practice after each deployment, he has no regrets about his choices. “I’m very patriotic,” he said. “This is a good way to serve my country.”

His service does not come without great sacrifice for himself and his wife, Alicia, and three children, Tatum, 16, Drew, 12, and Chase, 11.  Besides the difficulty faced by every man and woman who serves and has to leave their family for months at a time, it is heartbreaking to lose other service members.  Major Guerrero’s last deployment was especially difficult.  U.S. servicemen were training Iraqi army troops in Mosul when one of the Iraqis – an insurgent working undercover – turned on and shot three U.S. troops, killing two of them.

Most of the patients treated by Dr. Guerrero during his deployments have been either Iraqi army or insurgents who injured themselves with Improvised Explosive Devices. “When we find them, we treat them, it doesn’t matter who they are,” he said.

Congratulations to all of our Hospital Heroes.