Maggie Sullivan Wins Aspirus Stevens Point Hospital DAISY Award

Congratulations to Maggie Sullivan, winner of Aspirus Stevens Point Hospital's quarterly DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses. Maggie is a registered nurse in the hospital’s Cardiac Rehab Department and was nominated by a teammate, who wrote:
There was a patient who was coming to Cardiac Rehab following a cardiac bypass procedure, and she was always fatigued and exhausted. They thought her blood pressure medications were possibly titrated too high, and she was sent to the ED without exercising one day due to being too tired and experiencing consistent light headedness. The patient actually required stability with walking due to her lightheadedness.
Maggie did some critical thinking and asked about other things that could be influencing fatigue. She asked about diet; and the patient was very closely following the cardiac diet we recommend to all cardiac patients, restricting sodium intake to a very small amount. Maggie concluded the patient was possibly suffering from hyponatremia (not enough sodium in her diet) due to the common information we provide our patients to be on a sodium restricted diet after their cardiac events. Maggie followed up with Ashley, our dietitian, to find out that about 20 percent of the population do not do well on a very low sodium diet - something that was not known to our staff members. After having this discussion with the patient, Maggie encouraged her to increase her sodium intake to 1500mg/day, and the patient had a remarkable recovery. She had a significant increase in energy, was able to walk for 35 minutes on a treadmill, and had a significant improvement in mood - just 48 hours after increasing sodium intake!! And most importantly, she had no lightheadedness.
This was a great learning point for our entire staff, as some people did not like that Maggie was encouraging INCREASED sodium to a CARDIAC patient! But she was right... per usual! She makes this kind of impact on everyone she comes into contact with in Cardiac Rehab; and this is why everyone who has gone through the program remembers working with Maggie!
The DAISY Award recognizes the outstanding and extraordinary care nurses provide every day. Our Aspirus DAISY Award winners and nominees exceed the needs and expectations of patients and families by displaying the Aspirus core values of: Compassion, Accountability, Collaboration, Foresight and Joy.