UMES DPT Student part of winning team for Anne Arundel Medical Center’s Champion Award for Excellence in Patient Care
During the Fall 2015 Clinical Affiliation, Nick Espinosa, 3rd year DPT student, and his two Clinical Instructors (CIs) at Anne Arundel Medical Center, Erica O’Neil, PT, MSPT and Megan Burkart, PT, DPT, were the winners of the Champion Award for Excellence in Patient Care.
The team of two CIs and Nick exemplified patient-centered care while providing treatment for a patient with multiple comorbidities, visual impairment, language barrier, and financial constraints. The team exceeded expectations by constructing a transfer board, providing clothing to ease transfers, creating a detailed home exercise program in the patient’s primary language, recording it on a CD, and gifting the patient a CD player. The disc was a coordinated effort between the physical therapy team and the hospital interpreter. The patient was unable to be discharged to a recommended rehabilitation facility prior to discharge due to financial constraints therefore the extra efforts employed in the creation of the home exercise program were essential to the patient’s safe rehabilitation at home.
The UMES Department of Physical Therapy is extremely proud of Nick and appreciative to Anne Arundel Medical Center and to Megan and Erica for providing an exceptional learning experience.
“Being a part of this treatment team was an excellent learning opportunity. The experience provided an opportunity to participate in providing quality care when faced with a patient case that had barriers to communication, multiple medical comorbidities, and financial/insurance limitations. This dedication to high quality of care was a constant from my CIs and the rehab staff throughout my affiliation, which made for a great experience!” ~ Nick Espinosa, SPT, Class of 2016
