Foothills Hospital Staff Nurse Haile Negash, RN, was nominated last year for a regional nursing award for his ongoing commitment to listening to patients, including one lady who was ready to leave the hospital prematurely.

By sitting and listening to the patient, Haile determined she was concerned about her cat at home. Haile arranged for someone else to care for the pet, ensuring the patient stayed to recover fully before going home.

“As a nurse, always, I think: ‘I’m here to make a difference on my patients. When you listen to your patients and their concern -- 50 percent of their care is there. You must let them know that you are here for then, to take care of them. That you are listening,” Negash said. “It’s not a one-way thing. When you put a smile on their face also you are putting a smile on your face, too. You feed a sense of satisfaction that you get from the outcome.”

Award-nominated clinical staff nurse Beverly McClary, RN, works in the intensive care unit at Foothills Hospital.

In our latest BCH Listens video, Beverly talks about what it’s like to work with Negash -- identified by nursing leaders at BCH as an exceptional listener -- and how nurses at BCH are heavily engaged with BCH Listens.

"Haile is really an amazing person to work with. He really takes the time. He never says ‘I’m too busy.’ He sits down. He says, ‘What do you need? What can I do for you?’ And he does that with his patients. He also does that with the people he works with,” she said.

Beverly has been a driving force in improving how BCH manages sepsis -- a deadly condition where the body's response to infection injures its own tissues and organs. In 2017 BCH was the #3 hospital in the United States in meeting national core measure standards for the management of sepsis.

And Beverly was instrumental in implementing a new system to identify and track sepsis through the electronic health record. She is now a sought-after resource at BCH for best practice in sepsis management.

“Nurses here at BCH are leaders. They have the opportunity to impact policy and the listening initiative is just one example of that,” she said. “Listening is really that portion of compassion that sometimes gets forgotten but it’s probably one of the most important things when you’re compassionately taking care of a patient or a family member.”