October Shooting Star Winner

Aspire is proud to recognize Jackie Jund as our October Shooting Star Award Winner!

Each month Aspire collects outstanding employee recognition called Shooting Star nominations.  These are voted upon and awarded at our monthly staff meeting.  

All of the monthly award winners are voted upon each year to select our yearly Shooting Star Award winner.

This week was quite a busy week – but Jackie didn’t skip a beat. Jackie had been on-call and reported Monday morning that over the weekend we had multiple people sick at a location and some positive for covid, with more suspected to develop. When I arrived in her office around 8am she was already on the phone with that location. She would continue to be on the phone with staff several times throughout the day (and night) guiding on those who were ill, testing, PPE, and covid protocols. She made several calls to their primary physicians updating on their diagnosis and requesting antiviral treatments, knowing that many people at this location were medically fragile and at higher risk for complications related to covid. She was able to convince one of the Dr’s for a few of the people, who typically doesn’t order the treatment, that this treatment was vital and therefore did agree to order the antiviral treatment. Advocating and pushing forward is not a new thing for Jackie.
The next day was our planned flu and covid vaccine clinic at the center. Jackie was instrumental in guiding the Avera and PC team for the people supported who needed a little more support for their vaccines. She brought her dancing dude for distraction and helped those who struggle with these types of things get through it a little easier.
As the clinic ended, Jackie went right back to calls with the pharmacy in trying to determine which type of antiviral treatment each person qualified for. She was tasked with the difficult decision of trying to determine which 2 would get the treatment as Avera hospital reported only having 2 doses and time slots left this week. Luckily the Avera Pharmacy team from Sioux Falls was still at Aspire and got on their phones right away to get their team working with us to get doses from Sioux Falls. Sanford also stepped up and offered to treat all of the people needing it. All those who were ordered to receive the treatment did receive it due to Jackie’s perseverance.
Many do not get to see all that happens behind the scenes with our nurses Jackie and Kari but this is a great example of the hard work and dedication that is happening on a day-to-day basis. Their days can be extremely busy with many not realizing all the things happening at once from varying directions or locations that they are addressing. Thank you Jackie for always being so dependable to give 100% and continuously going above and beyond in advocating for the health and wellness of the people we support and our employees!

~Nominated by Angela Huffman, Director of Nursing

If you have had an exceptional experience with an Aspire employee, please nominate them for a Shooting Star Award by clicking here!