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Lauren Berman and Autumn Moore "have been invaluable in the care of this patient — I truly believe they have made a huge difference."

The Nursing Professional Governance Organization (NPGO) honors up to two UVA Health University Medical Center team members each month with a BEE (Being Excellent Everyday) Award.

Ashley Noguera, PMP, NPGO Nursing Recognition and Retention Specialist, surprised Lauren Berman, Occupational Therapist, and Autumn Moore, Licensed Physical Therapy Assistant, with BEE Awards.

Heather Turner, RN, submitted the nomination:

"A woman on the stroke service was admitted with top of the basilar thrombus and bilateral posterior circulation strokes. She also had a myocardial infarction. This was a devastating injury. The family decided to move forward with care, and she had a trach and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy placed.

"For weeks, we were trying to get her to an appropriate place to continue her recovery. At first, recommendations were for a skilled nursing facility (SNF) or long-term acute care hospital (LTACH) when a new trach still qualified her for LTACH, but medical issues kept her from discharging. After a month or so, we started to see improvement in her neurological status.

"Autumn Moore has been the patient's strongest advocate. She has worked with her consistently, educating nurses and physicians about her changing (improving!) rehab needs, teaching us about Rancho (Los Amigos Levels of Cognitive Functioning Scale) levels and how traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehab programs and facilities that will take patients like this wearing hand mitts, etc. Autumn has fought for this patient constantly.

"The first insurance denial for rehab was more than a month ago. There have been at least three, peer-to-peer physician phone calls and two formal appeals and still insurance was saying no, even though the physicians here (eventually including Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) and at two other facilities said she was an appropriate candidate for the low level TBI rehab program Autumn was advocating.

"Autumn continued to lobby for the patient and, with Occupational Therapy (OT) and our case manager, pushed us to continue to pursue more than SNF-level rehab for this patient. We were finally successful in getting the insurance company to pay for the rehab that this young mother deserves.

"The resident involved in the peer-to-peer phone call said Autumn — and Lauren Berman from OT — were on the phone call and instrumental in getting the insurance company to agree to pay for acute rehab. Lauren is great and has been a very strong advocate for this patient as well. The resident said Lauren's experience as an adaptive internal relational (AIR) therapist was super helpful.

"Lauren and Autumn are stars! Both of them have been invaluable in the care of this patient, and I truly believe they have made a huge difference in this patient's life and thus, in this patient's newborn child's life.

"The stroke attending who was on the call said, 'They were both fantastic! Very professional and polite and strong advocates. I don't think it would have gone through if they hadn't been there.'

"Life changing, I tell you!"

Know a Deserving Team Member?

The BEE Award recognizes UVA Health University Medical Center team members who work alongside our nurses to impact patients' experiences — just as bees and flowers depend on one another. Submit a nomination.