Bayhealth’s Flores Receives National Nurse Practitioner Advocate Award
Bayhealth is proud to announce that Bayhealth Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner Suzette M. Flores, DNP, BWS, APRN, NP-C, has been named a recipient of the 2019 American Association of Nurse Practitioners® (AANP) Delaware State Award for Nurse Practitioner Advocate Excellence. This prestigious award recognizes the efforts of individuals who have made a significant contribution toward increasing awareness and recognition to the nurse practitioner role.
Flores is the Palliative Care nurse practitioner for the Bayhealth Hospital, Sussex Campus. In her role, she helps patients suffering from the pain and symptoms stemming from a serious illness. Palliative Care isn’t hospice, nor is it end-of-life care. Rather it’s a service that aims to help suppress a patient’s suffering and improve the quality of their life regardless of the stage of the illness.
Receiving an award for being a nurse practitioner advocate stems from Flores’ work to promote the role of nurse practitioners in Delaware. She helped expand the Delaware Coalition of Nurse Practitioners to southern Delaware. Flores also lobbied for Senate Bill 227, which deals with insurance plans and reimbursing primary care physicians, certified nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other front-line practitioners.
“I’m so proud to help promote nurse practitioners and to help people understand what we bring to the table when caring for patients,” Flores said. She likens her role to that of a detective, stating nurse practitioners have to look at the whole patient and take their physical, spiritual, financial, and emotional needs into account when providing care. “We have to figure out what’s impacting the illness to truly put together a care plan that meets all of their needs. If we don’t understand everything causing an illness, the issue will continue to happen and the patient will remain ill.”
As a recipient of this award, Flores was honored at an awards ceremony and reception at the AANP 2019 National Conference in Indianapolis. The AANP is the largest national professional member organization for nurse practitioners.
Are you interested in becoming a nurse at Bayhealth? Visit Bayhealth.org/Nurses to learn more about nursing at Bayhealth.
