Adventist Health and Rideout Honors September 2024 BE Award Recipients

The BE award recognizes associates who exemplify Adventist Health "BE" statements (Be Love, Be a Force for Food, Be a Mission Owner, Be Welcoming, Be Curious, Be Brilliant). All Adventist Health and Rideout associates at the hospital, outpatient clinics and skilled nursing facility are eligible for nomination.

BE Award Recipient: Dr. Inderjeet Brar
Department: CVICU
Submitted by: Mattison Steinhoff
BE Statement: Be Love

Madison Steinhoff: “Dr. Brar is an exceptional physician. He goes above and beyond for his patients and is a joy to work with. He is positive and hardworking. Dr. Brar was faced with a situation with a critical patient. This patient had been coding off and on for almost an hour, with very brief periods of ROSC. This time included getting ROSC at one point and rushing the patient to the unit so that he could insert lines and continue to exhaust every avenue he could. He called for consults from various doctors, welcomed suggestions from nurses, and kept the family updated every chance he had. Despite what appeared to be a grim outlook, Dr. Brar continued round after round with orders and treatments. He did not give up on the patient and her family, listened to their concerns, and worked hard to save the life of the patient. Dr. Brar was concerned with the patient's potential brain function after having CPR off and on for an hour, but never gave up, and due to his efforts and persistence, along with the great efforts and CPR from the staff, the patient remains on the ventilator currently but is following commands."

"Dr. Brar exemplifies everything I would want from a doctor caring for my potential family member. I am proudly nominating an intelligent and caring physician for the Be Love Award, when in reality he could be nominated for any of them!”

BE Award Recipient: Megan Stevens
Department: Business Development
Submitted by: Cassie Alvarez
BE Statement: Be Curious

Cassie Alvarez: "It is my pleasure and honor to recommend Megan for the “Be Curious” Award. Curious is defined as "Eager to learn or know; inquisitive". To be curious means to question reality or the “norm” and to not take “no” for an answer, especially when your gut tells you there is more to explore or investigate."

“Being curious, asking why, not accepting the first no for an answer, and digging in deep is exactly what Megan has done.”

“Our organization is on a path to financial viability, but to get there, we must look at every stream of revenue and expense. Part of Megan’s role in business development is to conduct service line analyses. Each service line requires extensive data collection, analysis, and projections.”

“Megan first noticed that there was “something off” when looking at the orthopedic service line. She noticed that outpatient reimbursement rates were way lower than expected, resulting in an unfavorable margin. Megan escalated her findings and began questioning why. Her curiosity did not stop there. For months, Megan analyzed reimbursement, worked with PFS, Billing and corporate teams to try to uncover the issue. Megan singlehandedly found over $2.5 MILLION in reimbursement that is contractually owed to the organization.”

“But wait… there is more! Megan escalated her findings through AHRO’s executive team, a spotlight was then pointed at this issue and a corporate team came together to fix it. Megan’s curiosity did not allow her to be satisfied with someone else fixing it. She is fully invested in the success of this organization, so her curiosity propelled her to dig further, look at claims, and research guidelines.”

“Megan was able to not only find WHY these claims are being denied, but she went further to find the solution.”

"She deserves this Be Award."

BE Award Recipient: Nicole White
Department: Hospice
Submitted by: Sarah Charles
BE Statement: Be Love

Sarah Charles: "I'm nominating Nicole because she embodies the "Be Love" statement for Adventist Health. As an RN case manager for hospice, Nicole has taken care of many individuals at end of life but recently she helped care for a man that had been on hospice services for nearly a year. He didn't have family and his goal was to die in his home. This individual started to decline and when he had a change in condition, Nicole and his hospice team arranged their schedule to visit him during the day to ensure his needs were met."

"During his last hours of life, he began experiencing pain, nausea, and vomiting. While he could have been transferred to the hospital for symptom management, Nicole provided symptom management through the night hours to ensure he could stay in his home. This ultimately allowed him to pass away peacefully in his home which was his goal from his first day of hospice service. To spend time with another person in their final hours in the middle of the night to provide comfort, if that is not the definition of love I don't know what is."

BE Award Recipient: Janeen Mansel
Department: Lab
Submitted by: Sandeep Pandher
BE Statement: Be a Force for Good

Janeen Mansel: “I would like to recognize Janeen for all her hard work and for consistently going above and beyond to meet the needs of her patients. My 11-year-old son was diagnosed with Leukemia last year, went through aggressive chemotherapy sessions, and had anxiety about getting his blood work done. Initially, we were getting his blood work done three times a week from UC Davis, and it wasn't pleasant for him until I got his lab work moved to Adventist Health Lab on Tharp Road, Yuba City. I spoke with Janeen on the very first day about our last six months' Journey at UC Davis, and she took a reasonable amount of time talking with my son, making him comfortable and giving him a count every time before drawing blood and talking with him to make him comfortable while drawing blood. She approaches us every time we go for a blood draw because my son wants her to draw his blood and gives a big smile when he sees her as he is confident, she is here, and everything will be fine. She is always very empathetic and actively listens to her patients while registering them for blood draws. Janeen is a valuable member of the AHRO team, and I would like to thank her for her hard work and for going above and beyond.”

BE Award Recipient: Angelica Avelar
Department: Materials Management
Submitted by: Virginia Medina
BE Statement: Be a Mission Owner

Virginia Medina: "Materials Management can be behind the scenes a lot of the time, but their work is so important to those working at the bedside and our patients. We would like to recognize Angelica from the Materials Management Department for exemplifying the Be Statement, Be a Mission Owner. Angelica owns her role and understands that her work is mission critical to ensure our team has the tools we need to do our best work at the bedside. We recently went to the two-bin system and with anything new there is change and in this case a lot of requests to make the change more efficient."

"Angelica has embraced these requests timely and has positively worked with our team to adjust and problem solve. One great example is the LR bags were located low on the bottom shelf. This is a frequently used item and for ergonomics it was requested to be moved up and increase the par. The current cart couldn't manage this request, so she worked with her leadership team to get a different cart. She goes above and beyond to help find solutions and ensure we have what we need to do our best work. She owns her role and understands the impact on the patient and the nursing team. We appreciate her and want her to know that she inspires Health, Wholeness and Hope through her role directly with the healthcare team and indirectly to our patients."