Unity Health Harris Tales of a Transplanted Fashionista

Unity Health Newport Receives Excellence In Healthcare Award

Unity Health Newport was recently recognized as a 4-Star, PRC Excellence Award in Emergency Department Services for Overall Care in ER Rating by PRC, a leader in the healthcare intelligence space.

The Excellence in Healthcare Awards recognize organizations and individuals who achieve excellence throughout the year by improving patient experiences, healthcare employee engagement, and/ or physician alignment and engagement based on surveys of their patients.

“It is an honor to recognize Unity Health Newport with this Excellence in Healthcare Award for their deserving work,” said Joe M. Inguanzo, Ph.D., President, and CEO of PRC. “It takes true dedication and determination to achieve this level of excellence in healthcare and Unity Health Newport has shown their commitment to making their hospital a better place to work, a better place to practice medicine, and a better place for patients to be treated.”

We see between 750 and 800 patients a month in our emergency department. Our ER is the front door of our hospital. Over the past 12-18 months, we have made the emergency room a priority and focused to ensure that our associates treat all patients like family. How would you want your mother treated? LaDonna Johnston, V.P. Administrator at Unity Health Newport states, “As we have added physicians and nursing associates to the ER, we interview to that point. We can see the fruits of our labor with these scores. We are so very proud of our ER but also the ancillary associates too that show that same attitude while delivering care.”

To learn more about the 2022 Excellence in Healthcare Awards, including eligibility and criteria, visit PRCCustomResearch.com. N

When kids ask me what I wanted to be, growing up, I honestly never wanted to be a counselor. I wanted to be a nurse, then a vet, then a marine biologist, and a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, and then finally I was set on becoming a dentist. So, when I changed my major to English and Spanish Education, and then graduate school for School Counseling, everyone in my life was like, ooook?

But in my old age, in 9 days I am rounding the corner to 25 years in education, as a teacher, a school counselor, an academic advisor and then a counselor again, my true love, I have learned a little bit about educators in general.

I always have this moment looking at my colleagues on the field, on what was a perfect Friday night, for me just last night. I watch them watching those kids with pride, kids they have fed, clothed, cried and laughed with, and essentially parented, during some of the most beautiful and most awful, times of their young lives. Educators get such a bad rap from so many, we are accused of trying to indoctrinate kids, trying to hurt more than we help, and just basically being terrible humans who are only in it for the “three months off”. (Holla ya’ll, because I love my late in the morning June coffee, any body of water, reading actual books and peeing when I want to, but it hasn’t been three months off without any work obligations since the 1960s, truly. Stop saying that mess).

Another year of loving these young men and women enough to stalk them to turn in their work, bug them to get up and come to school, to keep trying even when they simply don’t have it in them, and propping them up with the good Kleenex, some snacks from my desk, and the occasional hug or hallway banter.

Thank you for giving us your kids. And please thank my colleagues for coparenting alongside you for the last 13 years.

*In addition to the end of the year celebrations, stress and tests, I also got married, so my name has changed, but it’s still me. He is new to Independence County, so if you see him out and about, feel free to welcome him! N

ADVANCING STUDENTS, COMMUNITIES, AND INDUSTRIES IN ARKANSAS AND BEYOND.