South Nassau Communities Hospital Nurse Earns Healthcare Award for Elder Care Initiative

Oceanside, NY, January 17, 2018 --(PR.com)-- The Long Island Business News (LIBN) recently awarded a "Health Care Achievement."

Award to Joan Riggs, RN, for her advocacy and work in the area of hospital-based quality and safety initiatives tailored to the complex healthcare needs of elder patients.

LIBN's Healthcare Achievement Awards honor individuals and organizations in the healthcare industry on Long Island for outstanding leadership and commitment to service excellence and innovation.

"This award underscores Joan's commitment to our patients, the communities we serve and South Nassau's mission," said Sue Penque, PhD, RN, CNP, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of Patient Care Services at South Nassau. "On behalf of South Nassau's nurses, doctors, staff and administrators, I congratulate Joan for winning this recognition; it is well deserved."

South Nassau's designation as a NICHE (Nurses Improving Care for Health System Elders) hospital is a direct result of Ms. Riggs' focus on and recognition that caretakers require ongoing education to have advanced intuition and training to anticipate and respond to the healthcare needs of elder patients.

After attending the NICHE conference in 2015, Ms. Riggs, Nurse Manager of South Nassau's 38-bed Medical Surgical Telemetry unit, developed and spearheaded a hospital-wide initiative devoted to advanced tactics and elements of care for elder patients. Working closely with her colleague, Kathryn Geraghty, RN, who joined Ms. Riggs at the conference, they planned and delivered education to the nurse staff of Medical Surgical Telemetry Unit as well as nurse leaders throughout the hospital to improve the delivery of care for elder patients. Since the program's implementation, 10 registered nurses (RNs) at the hospital have attained Geriatric Certification and at least 10 other RN's became Geriatric Resource Nurses in 2016.

NICHE is an international program that provides principles and tools to stimulate a change in the culture of healthcare facilities to achieve patient-centered care for elder patients. Based out of NYU College of Nursing in Manhattan, NY, NICHE's network has over 680 hospitals and healthcare organizations from the U.S., Canada, Bermuda and Singapore.

Ms. Riggs, who joined South Nassau in 2010 to serve as Nurse Manager of Medical Surgical Telemetry Unit, has been in the nursing profession 31 years and counting. She has also worked for more than 20 years in the Surgical Intensive Care/Trauma Unit, 3 years in PACU, and a year and half in a general Medical Surgical Unit working as a Staff Nurse/Preceptor and an Assistant Nurse Manager at the former Saint Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in New York City.

A 1986 graduate of Saint Vincent's Hospital School of Nursing, she earned a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing from the College of Mount Saint Vincent in 1991 and attained a MSN in Education from the University of Phoenix in 2016. She has maintained Critical Care Registered Nurse certification since 1993 and achieved Gerontological nurse certification in 2015.