Hospital Wins State Level Awards
Two state level volunteer awards were recently bestowed on personnel at Wayne Memorial Hospital. The Georgia Hospital Association’s Council on Auxiliaries and Volunteers recently named Joe Ierardi as their CEO of the Year. Nominated confidentially by Brenda Humphrey, President of Wayne Memorial Hospital’s Auxiliary and Volunteers, Ierardi was surprised at the announcement made at the group’s annual conference. “The credit goes to the organization as a whole,” he said. In her written nomination of Ierardi, Humphrey pointed out certain aspects that she believed made her hospital CEO stand out among others, including his “focus on achieving excellent results in a highly competitive environment that requires continuous improvement.” She shared his success in “achieving revenue, profit and business growth” along with his “strong communication and business development skills with first-rate physician, employee and community relations.” She also noted his “outside the box thinking” as well as his vision and commitment “to bring the best to the hospital as a top healthcare provider.” Humphrey also shared with the judges the practical, everyday actions showing support of the volunteers from the top office of the organization such as participating in their fundraisers, ensuring they receive a meal ticket to the hospital café for each shift volunteered and attending their annual awards banquet.
Humphrey also accepted an Achievement Award on behalf of the entire Wayne Memorial Hospital Auxiliary and Volunteers at the conference. In order to attain the Achievement Award, the volunteers were required in one year’s time to issue three newsletters to the membership, invite their district directors to the hospital for a visit, add at least one new volunteer to the group, pay state level dues, attend annual conference and spring district meetings, appoint a Healthcare Advocate, complete a community outreach project and file a President’s Report. Upon hearing the news of both awards, Humphrey said she felt “ecstatic.” Although some of these tasks were difficult to complete in a pandemic year, she said, “The volunteers made it happen.”
Wayne Memorial Hospital, whose mission is to provide high quality health care services to all patients, built a state-of-the-art facility in 2007. It is the third largest employer in Wayne County with 500 employees, 84 beds and is a three-time winner of the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals Small Hospital of the Year Award.
The mission of the hospital volunteer group is to serve patients, patient family members and hospital staff. They donate thousands of hours a year in volunteer time and monetary donations to the hospital in order to assist in the procurement of necessary but unbudgeted equipment.