Appreciation for DAISY Foundation

Mark and Bonnie Barnes, cofounders of the DAISY Foundation, have done so much to thank nurses. To date more than 2.5 million nurses around the world have been nominated for DAISY Awards. In more than 5,500 healthcare settings in 35 countries and territories you will see nurses proudly wearing the DAISY pins they receive for having been nominated.

I’ve seen firsthand the positive impact that DAISY has on the culture of hospitals we work with, and have heard from nurses who think of being honored with a DAISY Award as one of the highlights of their career.

During my (so far anyway) only horizontal experience in a hospital, I had the privilege of attending a DAISY Award ceremony in which the nurse I nominated was given a bouquet of daisies and a Healer’s Touch statue.

Mark and Bonnie remark on how often nurses who are being honored with a DAISY Award say something to the effect that they’re just doing their job. But every one of those 2.5 million DAISY pins reflects the nurse wearing it having gone above and beyond the basics of the job description or what they learned in nursing school.

So on the back cover of the newly-released March edition of Voice of Nursing Leadership, I commissioned this special Thank You to these two very special people. And I know I speak on behalf of the entire nursing profession and healthcare industry in saying how much we appreciate all that you have done for nurses and the nursing profession.

DAISY Case Study

In my role as an adjunct faculty member at University of Iowa College of Public Health, I’m leading a team of graduate students working on a case study of The DAISY Foundation. We’re assessing DAISY’s impact along the four dimensions of Scale, Scope, Reach, and Depth.

If you’ve been nominated for a DAISY Award and/or if you work with a hospital or other organization that participates in DAISY, please take a a few minutes and respond to the 2 questions in this survey. You can also enter your email address to request a copy of the case study when it is published in April.

Complete the Survey