HWR Clinicians Earn National Recognition

Congratulations to Judy Bartel, Chief Clinical Officer, and Nancy Washko, Hospice Nursing Assistant, for achieving national awards from Hospice and Palliative Care Credentialing Center, the organization that provides specialty certification to 15,500 healthcare professionals nationwide. Judy has been named “Certified Hospice and Palliative Care Administrator of the Year” and Nancy was named “Certified Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing Assistant of the Year.” 
 

Judy Bartel

Judy-Bartel-Portrait.jpgJudy is recognized as a pioneer and national leader in both serious illness and hospice care. She entered palliative nursing when it was a comparatively new specialty.  She innovated a dementia care program that adapts communications and engages individuals in care decisions earlier in their disease process and a renal disease model that integrates palliative care with dialysis services. One of her crowning achievements was developing Western Reserve Navigator (WRN), a community palliative care program, one of very few of its type in the country. WRN helps patients living with advanced illness maintain independence and prevent hospitalizations by managing symptoms at home. The program earned a national Circle of Life award from the American Hospital Association in 2019.

This year, the COVID-19 pandemic presented previously unimaginable challenges. Judy’s strategic leadership helped HWR’s clinical teams navigate and adapt to the pandemic’s changing complexities. She collaborated with other clinical leaders who dealt with the pandemic before it arrived in Ohio. She continues to confer and share best practices with colleagues across the U.S.
 

Nancy Washko

Nancy.jpgNancy joined HWR in 2014. “From the moment she interviewed for the position, it was clear that she had a heart for hospice,” said Lisa Carrigan Tomm, RN, BSN, clinical team leader. “She serves as a wonderful mentor and role model for our new Hospice Nursing Assistants. She shows them that what matters most is making the best of every single day our patients have left.”  

“When I think of a person I want caring for me at the end of my life, I see Nancy Washko,” added social worker Julia Wasilewski. “She is loved by so many for her calming and compassionate demeanor. She is a wonderful listener and many of our patients and their loved ones feel comforted by her willingness to provide supportive presence and validation.”  

Some of the most touching comments about Nancy’s work come from a former patient’s husband, who was married to his wife for nearly 50 years. He reflected on the exceptional care  his beloved wife received. She had been coping with a dual diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and multiple myeloma: 

“Nancy shared with me that she had spent many years working in another profession,” he said. “Then, her mother became ill, and ended up in hospice. When Nancy witnessed how lovingly the nursing assistants cared for her mother, she knew that she had received a calling to do the same for others. She not only does everything the nursing assistants are paid to do, thoroughly and tenderly, but she does it with a spirit of sacredness. Her example communicates an expression of love for the value and dignity of life.”
 

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More than 1,000 Hospice of the Western Reserve employees and 3,000 volunteers live and work side-by-side in the same neighborhoods with our patients and families. We are privileged to have cared for more than 100,000 Northern Ohioans since our inception.