Episode 2: Honoring Nurses: The Daisy Foundation

Cara Lunsford (01:13.998)
We've got you, so sorry. This is actually the first time that Josel and I have done, like an interview, we've been talking to each other about stuff, but this is the first time we're actually interviewing a person together.

Bonnie Barnes (01:16.795)
No worries. Welcome home.

Bonnie Barnes (01:34.663)
So I have a question. The picture of Patrick and the baby, is that on my right shoulder or my other shoulder? Because it's backwards on the camera for me.

Cara Lunsford (01:35.63)
Thank

Cara Lunsford (01:42.702)
From what I see, it looks like on your right shoulder.

Bonnie Barnes (01:48.765)
Right shoulder, right. That's where it looks like to me too. See how the diploma is backwards.

Cara Lunsford (01:51.008)
Yeah, that's your right hand. Is that your right hand?

Cara Lunsford (01:58.602)
no, it's not backwards. I think it looks backwards to you.

Bonnie Barnes (02:00.283)
Is it right?

Bonnie Barnes (02:04.133)
It does, and the book looks backwards.

Cara Lunsford (02:06.924)
Yeah, but from what I see, it looks normal. think when you're on camera, it's mirrored. Right. So it looks like a mirror to you. Yeah, but for us, for us, looks for us. It looks normal. Yes, we see you and we see Patrick.

Bonnie Barnes (02:14.673)
Yes. Okay. You're seeing it right. Excellent. Okay, that's important. Kara, great to see you in person last week. That was so fun.

Cara Lunsford (02:30.83)
I know that was so nice. That was amazing. That was so, so, so wonderful. And I had an opportunity to see John again. John Ram. I saw John.

Bonnie Barnes (02:33.169)
No.

Bonnie Barnes (02:38.333)
constant.

Bonnie Barnes (02:44.797)
John, tell me which jump. good. Yes.

Cara Lunsford (02:49.408)
Yes, I saw him again and I made my way into his office and he'll be forever regretting the fact that he gave me access to that office.

Bonnie Barnes (03:02.227)
Well, I'm going to see it next week. haven't been there. hear it's quite wonderful.

Cara Lunsford (03:04.334)
I was like, you're gonna see a lot of me, John.

Cara Lunsford (03:11.668)
It is. It's really beautiful. So actually, right before you came in, we did a nice little intro about you. We talked about you when you weren't here.

Bonnie Barnes (03:12.679)
Yeah. Great.

Bonnie Barnes (03:25.787)
I knew something was weird.

Cara Lunsford (03:29.88)
Were your ears ringing? Did you know we were talking about you? So I was talking to Josel about you and I was saying how much I absolutely adore Bonnie Barnes from the Daisy Foundation, a huge fan of the Daisy Foundation. I can't think of a nurse who isn't. And I was gonna introduce you to Josel James, my co-host. Hi, Bonnie. Nice to meet you. I've heard so much. Good things. I'm sorry?

Bonnie Barnes (03:31.281)
Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (03:54.557)
Honey, Marcel, tell me about it.

Tell me about you.

Cara Lunsford (04:01.222)
I'm a nurse. I'm a speaker and a comedian. I like making comedy content on, you know, satirical takes on healthcare and seeing really what's wrong with it and then trying to make it funny. And then now I'm on this podcast with Kara. Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (04:16.445)
God.

Bonnie Barnes (04:21.095)
So you're not gonna be snarky about Daisy, right?

Cara Lunsford (04:24.758)
absolutely not. No, I'm not a snark. That's not my humor. I'm not a snarky guy. I'm not. No, he's not a snarky guy. He he he's actually very clean humor. His humor is very clean. Which I appreciate.

Bonnie Barnes (04:25.999)
Okay.

Bonnie Barnes (04:36.467)
Well, I wasn't worried about the hearing. I'll tell you what we are sensitive about, and I'm constantly having to deal with this, is when you go on Etsy and you find things like the Wilted Daisy Award for nurses who are mediocre.

Cara Lunsford (04:51.964)
wow. That's a thing?

Bonnie Barnes (04:53.661)
Cuts to our heart. Yep. Cuts to our heart. We've been able to say to people, can't use, we trademarked the Daisy Award, you can't use that. there's negative stuff out there. Broken Daisy and it's missing a pedal out of the pen, stuff like that. what nurse doesn't want to be a great nurse? So.

Cara Lunsford (04:57.363)
my gosh.

Cara Lunsford (05:11.35)
No, that's definitely not my humor. Yeah. That is so heart wrenching.

Bonnie Barnes (05:20.871)
I know, I know. So I just wanna make sure that's not your kind of humor, Josel.

Cara Lunsford (05:22.56)
I had no idea.

Cara Lunsford (05:26.634)
100 % not my humor. That would have been awkward if it was. Oh my gosh, that would have been really awkward if it was. He's like, oh shoot. I'm very careful about who the the butt end of the joke is, right? Who's the target of the humor? I'm very careful. And it's definitely not like things like Daisy or I don't make fun of patients or anything like that. Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (05:27.933)
Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (05:39.889)
Yeah. Yeah. Good.

Cara Lunsford (05:46.336)
Yeah, he's he's very sensitive. It's the only reason why, you know, for nurse.com, we've been around a long time. Daisy Foundation has been around a long time. You only survive and weather the storm if you have like if you have a strong brand. And I think who you align yourself with speaks volumes. And so, you know, he made the cut is what I'm saying. He made the cut. Thank you.

Bonnie Barnes (06:02.087)
Yes.

Bonnie Barnes (06:06.023)
Mm-hmm. Yes, it does.

Yeah, it says a lot. a lot. Well, it's great to meet you. Work for you online.

Cara Lunsford (06:16.97)
So I wanted, I know that so many people, I know that so many people who listen to this podcast that they probably are like, I know the Daisy Foundation, but for, let's pretend for a second that they don't. Okay, so we're gonna, I'm gonna ask you to introduce yourself and the Daisy Foundation. And then we're gonna kind of get into like some of the really cool and interesting things that Daisy is doing in the coming years. So go for it.

Bonnie Barnes (06:44.679)
Yeah. OK.

26 years ago, my stepson Patrick, whose picture you see behind me, died of complications of the autoimmune disease, ITP.

So let me give you our elevator speech, although I give you a heads up it may be that we're on the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building. But just to give you an understanding of why we do what we do. When Patrick was in the hospital for two solid months, my husband and I were with him pretty much day and night. And we got to see for the first time what nurses do every day and every night. We had expected that he would get excellent clinical care because he was really sick and in two

very good hospitals. What we didn't expect though and what really touched us was the way that his nurses delivered their care. It was their compassion, their sensitivity, their kindness and not only to Patrick who was on a ventilator for a good part of those eight weeks he was in the hospital but to all of us in our family as well. So when he died we felt we have to find a way to say thank you to nurses for what they do every day but no doubt they take for granted

and yet it makes a huge difference to the patients and families that are in their care. So right after we passed away, we created the DAISY Award and it stands for diseases attacking the immune system, really to keep us rooted in our experience with Patrick and his nurses. And we wanted a way for other patients and families to be able to share their stories of the extraordinary difference that a nurse had made in their care. So DAISY is all about ongoing recognition

Bonnie Barnes (08:30.033)
in a truly meaningful way because they're nominations for the award that come from people who matter most, think, to nurses, patients and families and colleagues. And then nurses may be chosen for the Daisy Award in their organization by a committee of nurses through a very structured and high integrity process. So that's really what the award is all about. And our intent when Mark and I set this up was that we would

partner with maybe five or ten hospitals that having gotten the Daisy Award out there and creating some gratitude from patients and families, we'd start to feel better about losing Patrick. But that's obviously not what's happened because today we're partnering with very close to 8,000 healthcare facilities and nursing schools in 46 countries. So the drive for meaningful recognition has, it's just the movement is underway.

and nurses are getting to feel the feedback, the positive feedback, recognition for all the good work they do is coming to nurses in a very big way. So that's our story.

Cara Lunsford (09:43.552)
It's so amazing. I'm always in awe of it. That's amazing. It's great to hear it from the person who started it. That's amazing. And I didn't know it was that big. 46 countries. It's huge.

Bonnie Barnes (09:54.863)
I know, I know. And another one about on the way, just, frankly, it's a little overwhelming. Mark and I had no vision for this. And so we've put in place a fantastic team. There's a whole bunch of people who work at the Daisy Foundation that really make this happen and partner with all these organizations to give them a very robust recognition program.

Cara Lunsford (10:04.417)
Yeah, I bet.

Cara Lunsford (10:11.032)
Nice.

Cara Lunsford (10:17.582)
That's incredible, isn't it? Incredible is a good word. And I always forget, Bonnie, I always forget that what Daisy stands for. So when you said that, was like, oh, that's right. Diseases against immune system. Yeah. Attacking the immune system.

Bonnie Barnes (10:30.77)
Yeah.

attacking the immune system.

Cara Lunsford (10:39.714)
I don't know why I did not even remember until you just said it and I was like, my gosh, that's right. That's right. It actually is kind of an acronym for something. that is so.

Bonnie Barnes (10:47.143)
Yep. And that's why you always see it all capital letters. It is an acronym. We want to keep standing for that, as well as it's our brand. And that's important to us.

Cara Lunsford (11:00.504)
Do you work very closely with a lot of foundations, very specifically in autoimmune? Like, you, because you're so rooted in that, do you have other relationships?

Bonnie Barnes (11:11.059)
you

That's a great question, Carol. When we first started, we did. And it was really a personal thing for Mark and me. We were engaged with the Platelet Disorder Support Association, Platelet Disorder Support Association here in the U.S. with the ITP Association in England. And we were doing some work with them at the time. But as Daisy grew and our focus became so clear that there was a real need for recognition among nurses, we just narrowed our

focus right on to the nursing profession and saying thank you to nurses.

Cara Lunsford (11:47.468)
Yeah. That's amazing. Did you have Daisy at your hospital? Yeah, I've worked at a lot of hospitals. I worked at over 10 hospitals. There's Daisy in every hospital. It was like a known thing. don't, I thought it was in every, I think it's in every hospital now. I would, I would assume I'd be surprised if it wasn't in a hospital. Yes. I was a travel nurse for a few years, but yeah, it's in every hospital. I'm curious when you're starting something like that, you're saying you didn't have a vision. What would be the first step to even, you know, think, Hey, I want to start.

Bonnie Barnes (11:59.667)
Thank

Cara Lunsford (12:17.518)
something like this and how who do you talk to in the hospital where do you even start?

Bonnie Barnes (12:22.439)
Well, first of all, Gisele, we are marketing people by trade. our whole focus or experience was in building brands and in my husband's case, building a business. The first thing we did was apply for our 501c3 status and become a nonprofit organization.

And then I started cold calling hospitals. Well, first, very first, we took our concept to the chief nurse executive at the University of Washington Medical Center, which was the hospital where Patrick was later cared for and passed away. And her name is Dr. Susan Grant. She's an incredibly important person in our lives because she's the chief nurse who said yes.

If she had not agreed to trying out this concept with us for her nurses at UW, we might have found something else to do for Patrick. But she was incredibly welcoming and understood that there could be real value in having patients and families share their experiences and their gratitude by writing these Daisy Award nominations and by having celebrations go on that were positive things for nursing all year long, not just once a week during Nurses Week, but throughout the year.

So Susan is the person who adopted the program first, said, let's work this out. We'll figure it out. Let's try it. And with her and her colleagues really bringing it to life, we had something to talk about. So then I started cold calling hospitals. then it wasn't, yeah, it was basically. Yeah. But I will tell you that despite the success there, it was a very slow slog building acceptance over the first.

Cara Lunsford (13:49.304)
So you had a pilot. You basically had a pilot. Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (14:02.13)
really till 2007. So we started in 1999 till 2007 and it was slow because chief nursing officers

and their gatekeepers, I have to admit, would say to me on the phone, our nurses don't need recognition. This is their jobs, it's their calling. Remember, this is 26 years ago, things were very different then. There was no recognition for nurses for what they do every day. There was academic recognition and clinical ladders and stuff like that, but not really for the care nurses provide. So they just didn't see it in the beginning. So the first year we got three hospitals

hospitals, including University of Washington. And the second year, we got four more, so now we're up to seven. In the third year, we lost one. They're back now. But, I mean, it was just really slow, and me cold calling, cold calling, cold calling. And finally, come 2007, at the end of the year, we had 182 hospitals. And it was just Mark and me, and we were drowning in work.

Cara Lunsford (15:05.218)
Wow. Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (15:06.931)
And so our idea was this would be a turnkey program. We would do all the work. We provided all the materials, nomination forms, award certificates, award gifts, a whole process, a whole package. And so we were kind of drowning in work, couldn't keep up. And so we approached what was then the American Organization for Nurse Executives and asked if they would like to support our program and help us.

So bless Pam Thompson, then CEO of AONE, which is now AONL, course. And she agreed. And they gave us some help. Yep, they gave us some help and really helped us create a business plan. And from there, Daisy started to move. So the first thing she recommended was that we come to their conference. We didn't even know nurses had conferences.

Cara Lunsford (15:40.663)
That's where he just went.

Bonnie Barnes (15:58.279)
We came to their conference and she said, don't want you in the exhibit hall, I want you out with us. That's why when you see us, Kara, at conferences, we are always out with the organization. And she helped us set up the model, and she and her colleagues.

So that's how we got going.

Cara Lunsford (16:14.414)
It's amazing when you can get the buy-in, right? When you get the buy-in of those decision makers and people start to really see the value of, but you had to believe in it. You had to believe in it enough for everyone and have that tenacity and that drive and stick-to-it-iveness that it takes to get something off the ground like this.

Bonnie Barnes (16:36.339)
Yeah, we are nothing if not persistent. Patient, but persistent. But you're right, there were enough people who were helping us understand the value in this. I'll give you one more name and somebody who's near and dear to your heart, Mary D. Hacker was the CNO at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

Cara Lunsford (16:42.894)
Yeah.

Cara Lunsford (16:57.912)
Yes.

Bonnie Barnes (16:58.543)
I heard I had a patient that I met, the father of a patient who wanted to help us bring the program to Children's LA. I cold called Mary D. And she said, I think I've heard about you. She answered the phone, number one. That was a shock. And she said, think I've heard about you. Tell me more. And long story short, she committed to bringing the Daisy Award to every children's hospital in the country. And she did it.

Cara Lunsford (17:14.99)
She's amazing.

Cara Lunsford (17:27.394)
Wow. She's the force.

Bonnie Barnes (17:28.507)
joined our board. is a force and she is to this day one of my closest friends.

Cara Lunsford (17:35.212)
Yep, she's amazing. do. Yes. She was she was our our CNO when I was at Children's Hospital and and in fact, I have a hostess award that a hostess gift she gave me when we celebrated one of our charge nurses, Tommy Covington, his 40th anniversary of Children's Hospital. We had it here at my house and Mary D came and she and she brought me a hostess like little plaque and I have it still hanging up in my house.

Bonnie Barnes (17:56.999)
Bonnie Barnes (18:03.132)
Huh.

Cara Lunsford (18:05.146)
because it was like I was so I was so just like overwhelmed by by her as a person. I'm just so impressed by her as a human being. So and she is quite a force.

Bonnie Barnes (18:20.319)
sidebar, Mark and I went to LA and presented Tommy with his Daisy Award.

Cara Lunsford (18:26.924)
Wait, what?

Bonnie Barnes (18:27.283)
Mark and I came to LA to present Tommy Covington with his Daisy Award prior to his retirement. I'll send you the picture.

Cara Lunsford (18:36.654)
my gosh, that's amazing. And true story about Tommy Covington, most beautiful man, I just absolutely adore him.

beautiful, like was in the Navy. I think he was in the Navy. he was, he worked in the military. He was a nurse and then he came to Children's Hospital and he worked for 40 years as a nurse at Children's Hospital. But one year for Halloween, I came to the hospital because we used to dress up. I came dressed as Tommy Covington.

Bonnie Barnes (19:12.723)
Cara Lunsford (19:13.486)
and everyone knew who I was. I had a little gray wig and I wore my suspenders and I had the little zip up scrub, because he always wore zip up scrubs and he always had a little pin here and a little pin there. And I walked through there and every single person knew that I was Tommy Covington. It was amazing. It was pretty fun.

Bonnie Barnes (19:31.507)
for

Bonnie Barnes (19:38.051)
hilarious. I gotta dig out theater with us presenting to him. You'll love it.

Cara Lunsford (19:43.872)
I will. So he was the charge and was at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, but amazing, amazing. And he had very distinct characteristics. He had very distinct characteristics. he be able to. Yes, he wore certain things. He always had suspenders. He always he would wear white pants. I was like, that is brave. He always wore like these white scrub pants. He had like a red zip up scrub or he had a blue zip up scrub, but his scrubs always zipped up. Yeah. And and his white white t shirt underneath and like so

Bonnie Barnes (20:00.691)
Thank

Cara Lunsford (20:13.856)
it was a thing. And everyone knew who you were. Everyone knew who you were. It was That's when you know you're a personality when you recognize you know someone else dressing up as you because if you if you were just like not a personality and you just showed up in scrubs it's like no who are you? No everyone knew him. Everyone knew this person. So I definitely have to see a picture of you awarding Tommy Covington with a Daisy Award because that would just be like the most beautiful one of the most beautiful things.

I really would love to hear, because you keep doing so many things, and the Daisy Foundation keeps changing and evolving and growing and building on its mission. What are some of the new stuff? What's some new things that are going on?

Bonnie Barnes (20:58.227)
Well, let me say first that the reason we grow and evolve is because nurses bring us incredible ideas. Pretty much every great thing Daisy does is because it was a nurse's idea and we're just running with it. it's, you know, hats off and great respect for the creativity and intelligence and, and knowing what nurses really need. So for example, we created a Daisy team award. You know, our plan was to recognize individual nurses, but

One day I got a call from a chief nurse in Philadelphia and she said, I love your program, but I keep getting all these nominations for teams of nurses or a team that may be an interdisciplinary team, but there's always a nurse leading the activity and they're doing great things for patients and families together. What do you think about creating a Daisy team award? What a great idea. We launched the Daisy team award. One day we were at a Daisy board meeting and one of our board members at the time was the dean.

of a nursing school in Cincinnati. She said, know, Bonnie and Mark.

Somebody had to teach those nurses who took care of Patrick. my gosh, what an epiphany. We need to create a faculty award. And I could remember so well at that meeting all the nurse executives on our board just bursting to tell us about special voices in their ear of professors or instructors who had stayed with them throughout their careers in practice and in leadership that they would never forget and that we needed to celebrate. So we created a faculty award, which then was

recommended to us by a faculty member that we evolve that to be a Daisy Award for educators so that it could include educators who are in health systems, preceptors, instructors, clinical instructors. So that's, we've done that. We created a Daisy Nurse Leader Award for all of those wonderful nurse leaders who are creating the environment where all the compassion that we celebrate can take place. So there's this whole array of awards that have

Bonnie Barnes (23:03.177)
been created as a result of ideas coming from nurses. We got into grant giving because when we started the Daisy Award actually, or started the Daisy Foundation, Mark and I really wanted to donate funding to scientists who were working in the area of autoimmune disease. And our idea was we've got to help prevent other families going through the kind of loss we had experienced. And then we went to visit a couple of these scientists.

found out we couldn't in a million years make any dent in what it costs to do that kind of medical research. So we put it aside and

Years later, 2010, one of our board members who was a nurse executive at actually at the University of Washington said, know, you two keep talking about research. If you're so interested in research, why don't we start a grant program for nurses doing research? Once again, an epiphany. We didn't know nurses do research. So we created the J. Patrick Barnes grant. Yeah, do they ever start created the J. Patrick Barnes grants for clinical research, nurses who are addressing

Cara Lunsford (24:05.346)
They do.

Bonnie Barnes (24:14.225)
treatment of patients and families with cancer and autoimmune disease since Patrick had had both of those. And that is run by a panel of extraordinary nurse scientists for us. I'd give the money to everybody, but that's not, wouldn't be good science. So we have a really strong review panel. We also have a grant program in the area of health equity, which we created frankly around the time of George Floyd's murder when we felt what in the world are we going to do? We at Daisy have to do something about this. So we got very

active in the area of health equity and creating grants for research and EBP and health equity, as well as creating a national award around health equity. So all of these things happen because nurses let us know what they need and what's going to make a difference. And that's all we're here to execute.

Cara Lunsford (25:06.283)
That is, isn't that amazing? Do you, how, okay, I love like the health equity stuff. I'm super passionate about like deserts, right? Like healthcare deserts. And I think we're gonna see even more of that like in rural areas.

we're seeing a lot of like hospital closures and things like that. Has that affected, how has that affected you Bonnie? Like with the Daisy Foundation and some of the environment that.

Bonnie Barnes (25:38.216)
the

We haven't seen, first of all, we haven't seen a lot of our partner hospitals close, although we're keenly aware of it and very sensitive about what is going on out there, especially in rural areas. By the way, we live in a rural area, so we're very sensitive about the potential laws for healthcare. And Daisy has a 97 % retention rate of hospitals that start the program. So, I will monitor that very carefully. I would know if we were seeing a lot of our hospitals closing.

keenly aware of the need for recognition of nurses at this time when they're under so much stress and organizations are under so much stress and we want the nurses to be able to stay focused on all the good work they're doing. we see the Daisy Award as a constant reminder of their positive impact on their communities, that it's nurses who are uplifting their communities during these very difficult times and we need to keep

keep making sure that they know how much gratitude is there for them and how much support.

Cara Lunsford (26:46.754)
Yeah. I like what you said about

All the advances in the Daisy program were by nurses and their ideas. And what you just said about what you're trying to do is just basically make a difference. So what would you tell nurses who are a little down, you know, having a bad day and thinking, well, how can I make a difference? Or if they have an idea, where can they go? Because some, some nurses don't know, they just feel terrible about their underappreciated, undervalued, but they have all these ideas or they think they want to make a difference. So what would be the first step that you would tell these nurses to

say, hey, your ideas matter, or you can't make a difference.

Bonnie Barnes (27:23.697)
Yeah, well, for one thing, I tell them to go volunteer for the Daisy Award program in their hospital or organization. There's a Daisy coordinator sometimes too in every partner organization we have. And having a chance to be on the committee, to work on the program, these nurses tell us how much they love it, how uplifting it is. They get to read the stories of extraordinary care, these stories that patients write that are, they're so filled with gratitude and emotion and they remind

not only the nurse who provided that care, but everyone who reads the story or hears it of the huge difference that nurses make. So that would be one thing. And I would say that any ideas they have, you know, there's professional governance in every, pretty much every healthcare organization now, that they should take them. Don't be quiet. Take those ideas to your governance committees and share them. And hopefully you'll find a very open ear because nurses are, as I said, incredibly creative.

and all these committees need help.

Cara Lunsford (28:28.396)
Yeah, one of my CEO mentors when I had Holly Blue was Dr. Leslie Mancuso. And she was the president of Jopiago. People don't even know how to pronounce Jopiago. But that's how you pronounce it. And she's no longer the president. She retired. she would always say, and I know she was kind of parroting someone else,

Bonnie Barnes (28:36.993)
yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (28:40.593)
Yes.

Cara Lunsford (28:58.48)
is like if you don't have a seat at the table, you you bring a chair. You know, you bring a chair. And that is, and I think that that's a lot of what Daisy is also really empowering nurses to feel like I have a voice and I have value and what I think and believe and say matters.

Bonnie Barnes (29:02.739)
Exactly.

Bonnie Barnes (29:18.033)
Yes.

Cara Lunsford (29:23.07)
And that's the power of empowering nurses is that it makes them feel like I can pick up a chair and I can take it to the table and I can speak about what.

Bonnie Barnes (29:37.085)
Just what matters, as you say. think, Giselle, the other thing I would say to you in answer to your question is that nurses take for granted what they do.

They don't see the difference they're making. And yet when they hear it from patients and families, very often what they're going to say is, I didn't do anything special. I was just doing my job. And I can tell you my husband Mark was on a campaign to get those words out of the nursing vernacular because they don't see it. So what Daisy does in those nominations do is to reflect for nurses the little things they do that make a difference.

Cara Lunsford (30:01.698)
Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (30:18.009)
that look for those things not only in yourself but in those everyone around you. Extraordinary is everywhere. Just open your eyes and look for it from the patient's perspective and then they know that they're making a difference.

Cara Lunsford (30:32.748)
Yes. Yeah, I love that. I think I can relate to that, especially coming from an ER background, because the mentality is next patient, next patient, next patient, next patient. And when you get thanked and it's just like you kind of it feels good to be thanked, but it's kind of like I got to be focusing on the next moment. And it kind of takes away from that moment, even if you take a second or two to take that appreciation in. And I feel like we don't allow ourselves to be thanked or to be appreciated, unfortunately. So.

Bonnie Barnes (30:33.715)
guys.

Bonnie Barnes (30:39.773)
Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (30:59.763)
Right. Well, we work with organizations trying to help them understand, please give nurses a little bit more time, time to be compassionate, time to feel the relationship with the patients and families, even in a busy ED. And we work toward the two areas where we really have to help our partners work hard to get nominations, are the ED and the OR.

Cara Lunsford (31:02.056)
I like what you just said.

Cara Lunsford (31:14.722)
Yeah, absolutely.

Bonnie Barnes (31:23.473)
patients are asleep or nurses are in a hurry. So we work on strategies, tactics for making sure that nurses are being recognized in both of those special places.

Cara Lunsford (31:34.668)
Wow, didn't even think of that. OR. Patients are asleep. So it's like what stories can the patient from their point of view tell? I get it. Wow. That's good that you actively seek recognition there.

Bonnie Barnes (31:46.825)
yeah, because surgeons see it, other nurses and tech see it, other people who are not the patient see it, right? Extraordinary is everywhere.

Cara Lunsford (31:50.35)
Yeah. Yes.

Well, they see, yeah, because think about the fact that like a circulating nurse, right? Circulating OR nurses coming in and out and in and out and really advocating for that patient, even though they're asleep, it's their eyes are on everything that is happening. Their eyes are on the sterility. The eyes are on, I mean, it's such a valuable thing and

Bonnie Barnes (32:09.351)
No? No?

Cara Lunsford (32:23.726)
I can see how it would be very unrecognized and feeling like a sense of not being appreciated because yeah, the patient doesn't get to see it firsthand anyway. And the families don't, because they're not in the room, right? So there's really nobody there aside from what you said, like the surgeon and their colleagues. And so it's really nice that those people can nominate them.

What are some things that you have seen in terms of like ER or, know, cause you mentioned ER, what kinds of nominations, like what, if a nurse was working in the ER and they're listening to this, they're saying like, well, what are some of the things that like I could do that do have an impact or do make a difference in the lives of patients, even if it's just a little like short, you know, and quick.

Bonnie Barnes (33:18.035)
It doesn't take any time to hold a patient's hand and tell them that you're with them. I mean, it's little things like that.

It's that human connection. It's the eye contact. You may be in a hurry, but just taking a moment to say, I'm here with you. I'm here to take care of you. We're going to get through this. And holding someone's hand, holding a hand, believe it or not, we hear so many stories of that's that made all the difference. For me, when Patrick was in the hospital, I talk about there is no hug like a nurse's hug. When when nurses saw that we were we were in

trouble emotionally and they would come in the room and could always spot it in me. Stand up Bonnie, I'm going to give you a hug. Huge difference. It took a moment and they go off. But that sense of being present doesn't take any time at all.

Cara Lunsford (34:14.67)
That's so true. And you're right, it only takes a second. A couple seconds, that's good. I like that. Did you find that there was times in the ER where? Definitely, I mean, there'd be moments where if I had those moments, I would definitely take advantage of them, where I could show, take a seat. I would try to do that. I would try to go eye level with patients and their family, because there's stools. But switching from like sixth gear to first gear is kind of difficult. But reminders like this is like,

you gotta remember, it's the patient point of view, patient's family point of view. It's their hardest day, one of their most difficult days, and taking a few seconds to really let the patient be seen. Even if clinically you're taking care of them like 100%, there is that element of it's important to give them some compassion as well. And I don't think that's talked about enough because it's not as valued in the system. Yeah, the system doesn't always value it as much as the families do. But it's so important.

Bonnie Barnes (35:07.537)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (35:13.875)
Well, I've got to tell you, I think systems are getting it more and more. When I look at the nursing models, professional practice models now, compassion is there. Compassion is no longer a soft skill. It used to be when we first started at Daisy, I think that's why we had such a hard time breaking through. Compassion was not the important thing. But now, because hospitals know patients are, you know, they're having to compete for patients largely, often, and they know that what's

Cara Lunsford (35:14.243)
Yep.

Bonnie Barnes (35:43.781)
what's important to patients is how nurses are doing and others are delivering their care because we all expect excellent care clinically. That's the price of admission. What do you do above and beyond that people go home and talk about and tell their neighbors about? And then that's reflected in what's called a net promoter score that hospitals are all looking at. And that's reflected in return visits. And I mean, not because somebody's sick, but in coming back, you are my hospital of choice.

And those kinds of things don't happen just because of clinical excellence. They happen because of how care is delivered and that human connection that, by the way, AI will never replace. That's what makes the difference.

Cara Lunsford (36:25.39)
No, is never going to replace that. I think that the day that Daisy's giving away an award to the AI nurse is the day, you know, like I got to hang up my hat or something. Just even that thought. AI robot. That's a skit. I'm making that a skit. It's hard to get the pin onto like a metal robot.

Yeah, we'd have to, yeah. What an idea though. It'd have to be a magnet. That is wild. Right? It'd be a magnet. Well, yeah, this is, you know, I'm just so, I'm so excited to follow the journey of Daisy. I think that even when I interviewed you last time, we didn't even get into the depth and breadth of everything that you're now doing, which is amazing.

Bonnie Barnes (36:58.363)
Yeah, a magnet.

Bonnie Barnes (37:22.355)
And then of course there's the whole international expansion of our program, which has been incredibly exciting. We see nurses are nurses all over the world. And you may have different scopes of practice and you may or may not use a stethoscope and you may or may not have have prescribing privileges if you're a nurse practitioner. Hello, Mark.

Cara Lunsford (37:44.68)
I was like, hey Mark.

Bonnie Barnes (37:47.783)
Sorry. That's okay, but you brought in a book, is a perfect prop for me right now. Well, yeah, you told me to. Marcus, say hi to Kara and Gisele. Hi, Kara. Yeah, Kara. Kara, you saw Kara last week at AUNL. Hi, guys. Yep. But my point is that nurses, the heart of nurses is universal.

Cara Lunsford (37:54.219)
I I love Mark.

Cara Lunsford (38:04.386)
You did. You saw me last week. he was there too.

Bonnie Barnes (38:12.709)
and compassionate care is universal. And it's wonderful to see the Daisy nominations that are coming from countries all over the world. I'm glad Mark came in with our book because we wrote this book called Shining the Light on All the Right, Celebrating the Art of Nursing Around the World. And this is our 20th anniversary edition.

Cara Lunsford (38:24.546)
you have a book.

Cara Lunsford (38:31.886)
It's amazing.

Bonnie Barnes (38:35.097)
It is available through us on our website or on Amazon. And there's an audio version that Mark and I actually read, which is a whole nother story. Yep. On Amazon, there's an audio version. And of course there's an e-edition. And then there's this lovely book that we are happy to sign for anyone who orders it through our website. This is our story. It starts with Patrick's in the hospital and ends up when we were at the magnet conference in 2000.

Cara Lunsford (38:43.362)
What? Wow.

Cara Lunsford (38:56.394)
This is...

Bonnie Barnes (39:05.2)
I guess it goes past our 25th anniversary two years ago. So I'm happy.

Cara Lunsford (39:11.224)
Does it have any examples of nominations in there or do you show any examples?

Bonnie Barnes (39:16.371)
Every chapter ends with a Daisy story and every chapter begins with a quote from somebody about Daisy and about nursing. Yeah, it's a lovely book.

Cara Lunsford (39:25.667)
wow. I feel like I want to cry. I love Daisy's stories.

Bonnie Barnes (39:29.395)
We did write the book. We have a fabulous ghost writer, Jim Eber, who we found, I don't know how, but we found him, now one of our dear friends, and he came and lived with us for about four or five days. Went through, just listened to us, recorded us for days, went through all of our scrapbooks, all of our collections of stuff we've gotten over the years, and wrote our story and did it beautifully. So I hope you'll enjoy it. There you go.

Cara Lunsford (39:55.99)
I have to say I'm probably gonna, for myself I have to get the, well I want both. I totally want both and I am gonna have you sign mine. But also I wanna listen to you both read it. So I'm totally gonna get the audible version of this. we're gonna have to, at nurse.com we're gonna have to let everybody know that this is available. So I'll be talking to the powers that be.

Bonnie Barnes (40:12.923)
Great, thank you.

Bonnie Barnes (40:21.19)
We appreciate it.

I have to say it was a hoot recording it. It was really fun, but it was a whole life experience because we live in this little town. Got time for this?

Cara Lunsford (40:29.398)
Was it?

Bonnie Barnes (40:35.761)
We live in this little town on the water, there are a lot of seagulls and no really professional recording studio, but we found a guy who has a little studio, but it's not exactly soundproofed. So we would go there on a Saturday morning for two hours to record. We figured a couple of chapters or whatever. And then we'd walk in and have a lovely visit with Dave and have a cup of coffee. And he'd say, okay, well, last week we had to, we now have to replace what he called punch-ups, which were phrases.

Cara Lunsford (40:36.043)
Yes, always.

Bonnie Barnes (41:05.684)
that we needed to re-record. Why? Because a seagull was flying overhead and squawking, or his neighbor turned on the washing machine, or a kid upstairs was making noise. I mean, it was hilarious. So it took us what was supposed to have been an eight-week project became about a 14-week project because the seagulls kept flying and making noise. So it was a lot of fun.

Cara Lunsford (41:30.817)
That's hilarious.

Bonnie Barnes (41:32.359)
He did a great job engineering it, so you'll never hear any of that. And he got rid of all the stuff, and we went back in and kept recording, re-recording phrases that he punched in.

Cara Lunsford (41:40.706)
That's amazing. Years ago, my wife recorded an album and the name of the album is called Creeks and Dogs. And the reason it's called Creeks and Dogs is because it kept picking up on all of these like little sounds and dogs barking that they just kept trying to get out of the tracks. And finally she was like, I can't do anymore. Yeah, this is it. So it's called Creeks and Dogs.

Bonnie Barnes (41:56.723)
Cool.

Bonnie Barnes (42:00.614)
Yeah.

That's it. That is great.

Cara Lunsford (42:10.155)
Yeah. Well, as always, Bonnie, it is absolutely wonderful having you on the podcast. I was really excited for Jocelle to get to meet you because I'm just a huge fan.

I am too. I'm a huge fan. I love hearing this. love mostly I love hearing about how the obstacles you faced in the beginning, the cold calling because it's huge now. But hearing the struggles you went through to get this. You didn't even have a vision for it. Like you said, to get this concept and idea and now it's internationally recognized. But the very beginning, you're just like picking up the phone cold calling. That's that's amazing. Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (42:27.321)
Thank you.

Bonnie Barnes (42:37.319)
Yeah.

Bonnie Barnes (42:51.091)
And you'll read all about that in the book, because really we wanted nurses to understand what it does take to start something that became this, but it didn't start out like this. But if it's worth doing, it's worth being persistent about, and we really believed it was worth doing.

Cara Lunsford (42:55.437)
That's in the book.

Cara Lunsford (43:12.833)
Yeah. That's amazing. That's a quote right there. Yeah. That's a mic drop. Well, Bonnie, is there anything else you would like to share with our audience before we wrap today?

Bonnie Barnes (43:16.083)
Well, so fun,

Bonnie Barnes (43:27.773)
Just my profound gratitude for being nurses, for what you all do every day. Please don't take this work for granted. Don't ever forget the difference you're making for patients and families, even if they don't say thank you to you. We are so grateful and it's really important that you feel our gratitude and that you know that your work matters, you are valued, you're a critical part of our society, and we're here to make sure that you hear that.

Cara Lunsford (43:56.365)
I love it. All my love to you, Bonnie and Mark wherever you are.

Bonnie Barnes (44:00.591)
And to you, I will tell them, Joseph, what a joy to meet you. I'm looking forward to finding you. Where will I find your comedy?

Cara Lunsford (44:12.019)
mine is Instagram mostly or YouTube. It's a but your name Josel James. Yeah, my name Josel James at Josel James JOS CEL James. All right, Bonnie, have a wonderful day. Thanks, Bonnie. It was great meeting you. Thank you so much.

Bonnie Barnes (44:14.779)
Okay, I'll be looking forward to

Bonnie Barnes (44:21.015)
I that part. Okay, I'll find you. All right. Have a good rest of your day, everyone. You as well. Great to be with you. Thank you. Bye-bye.