Beebe introduces new Gratitude Tree Project

As we all know and have experienced, a heartfelt “thank you” always goes a long way. And, during these unprecedented times, our healthcare workers deserve our gratitude like never before.

To quote Randolph Frederick Pausch, a brilliant professor at Carnegie Mellon whose incredible life was cut short by pancreatic cancer, “Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”

Beebe Healthcare actively practices Pausch’s philosophy and has created multiple platforms for the expression of gratitude.

Internally, Beebe team members acknowledge each other through the hospital’s L.O.V.E. Notes program (Living Our Values Every Day). Since the program’s inception, over 125,000 L.O.V.E. notes have been sent from team member to team member, expressing gratitude for one another in a multitude of ways.

The Celebrate Excellent Care program gives Beebe patients and their families a way to acknowledge individual Beebe team members or even entire departments. Patients can also nominate nurses through the Daisy Award for Extraordinary Nurses program. To date, the Celebrate Excellent Care program has received more than 2,000 messages describing excellent care from Beebe team members, and more than 200 of them have been printed as articles in this very paper. And many nurses have been honored with Daisy Awards.

Beebe’s newest gratitude effort is the Gratitude Tree Project (beebehealthcare.org/gratitude), which has launched at a particularly personal time for me because Beebe has once again taken care of one of my family members. The Gratitude Tree Project is open to anyone. It gives the entire community, not just Beebe employees or patients and their families, a way to demonstrate gratitude.

I expressed my personal gratitude with the following post, “I am grateful to every Beebe team member for their commitment, courage and compassion that they share each day when taking care of our community. You are so inspiring and appreciated for your many sacrifices! You are STILL heroes!” 

I believe that the tireless efforts of Beebe team members really matter. From facilities management to environmental and food services to registrars, financial services staffers, communications teams, public safety officers and, of course, our clinical teams, I understand that I, my family and our entire community rely on Beebe to always be on the ready. And that readiness is truly the best example of excellent care.

I am grateful for Beebe, and I appreciate the excellent care that Beebe team members demonstrate every day. I would encourage the entire community to visit  beebehealthcare.org/gratitude and leave a note on the Gratitude Tree to encourage those who have been on high alert for us and our community for so long.

Our gratitude for each other makes us the strong community that we are!