Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s medical/surgical department received an Honorable Mention during The Schwartz Center’s 2014 Compassionate Caregiver Awards.

The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare is a patient-founded non-profit organization based in Boston that works to promote compassionate care so that patients and their caregivers relate to one another in a way that provides hope to the patient, support to caregivers and sustenance to the healing process.

“Your team exemplifies what compassionate care is all about by demonstrating extraordinary empathy for your patients and their families,” The Schwartz Center’s executive director Julie Rosen wrote in a letter to NCH. “Your nomination signifies that your team is dedicated to making compassion central to the healthcare experience and that you are part of a distinguished group of recognized caregivers within New England.”

Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s medical/surgical department is a small but dedicated team of clinicians and staff that cares for more than 600 inpatients every year and completes 700-plus surgeries annually. In the most recent fiscal year, the hospital’s inpatient volume increased by 37 percent.

Over the past year, the medical/surgical team has successfully launched initiatives to reduce the number of inpatient falls, and to better educate and communicate with patients regarding their medications during their stay at the hospital.

“It is hard to put into words the quality of care the Med/Surg staff at NCH provides,” said nurse manager Kim Patten, RN, BSN. “I sit in my office, and hear the nurses go into the patients rooms, speaking to them about their medications, about what their goals are for the day, and so on, and it truly makes me proud. Here at NCH we treat our patients like family, and they are family. I am honored to be the leader of such an amazing team.”

Each year since 1999, the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare has honored one extraordinary healthcare provider with the Schwartz Center Compassionate Caregiver Award^®, for which Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s medical/surgical received the Honorable Mention. The award is one of the region’s most prestigious honors in healthcare. The 2014 Schwartz Center Compassionate Caregiver Award recipient and finalists were announced last month during the 19th Annual Kenneth B. Schwartz Compassionate Healthcare Dinner at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Nominees must work in a health-related organization or practice, such as a long-term care facility, community health center, outpatient clinic, hospice, visiting nurse association or hospital.

“The many poignant letters written by patients, families and colleagues in your support remind us all that empathic care is thriving throughout New England,” Rosen wrote to NCH.