Sentara colleagues and mission-focused initiatives win Health Care Heroes awards
Sentara Health programs and people won 2024 Health Care Heroes awards from Inside Business in four categories. The entries represent innovative thinking, compassion, and commitment to mission across the enterprise.
Health Care Heroes is a long-running annual competition among health systems and providers in Hampton Roads, sponsored by the Virginian-Pilot/Daily Press and the Hampton Roads Business Journal, Inside Business.
The Sentara winners for 2024 include:
- Community Service: Sentara's Sensitive Santa events earned a community service award. The events are conducted by Sentara Therapy Services. whose colleagues volunteer at multiple locations to provide a familiar, quiet, low-stress environment for neurodiverse children to visit one-on-one with a soft-spoken volunteer Santa. The program estimates they’ve had almost 300 Santa visits over five years with kids who might have missed the opportunity due to the crowds, noise and overstimulation at large public venues like shopping malls.
- Corporate Achievements in Health Care: The Sentara Health Equity Team won for distributing and training volunteers to use 165 automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) which were gifted to faith and community organizations in south Hampton Roads and Elizabeth City, N.C. The $1,500 units were purchased through the Sentara Foundation’s Heart Fund. The goal is to intervene in the precious minutes between calling 911 and waiting for help to arrive after a cardiac event.
- Physician: John Plemmons, M.D., medical director for the McLeskey Comprehensive Breast Center at the Sentara Brock Cancer Center, and breast radiologist with Medical Center Radiologists, received the physician award for 20 years of quality, compassionate patient care and innovative leadership in breast health, cancer prevention and physician education.
- Health Care Staff: Jennifer ‘Jenny’ Rizzotti, patient care technician at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital, who is also a hair stylist, volunteers to cut and style oncology patients’ hair and make them look as good as they can during chemotherapy and radiation.
Winners will be recognized at an awards breakfast in June and appear in a special section of the Virginian-Pilot's Inside Business.