Young professional honored
Sara Dodds, a Lutz resident and operations director at St. Joseph’s Hospital-North, has been named to the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” list honoring young professionals, according to a news release.
Every year, the Journal selects outstanding young professionals under the age of 40 from Hernando, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sarasota counties.
More than 500 nominations were received this year and 40 made the final list, the release said.
Nominees are evaluated on business success, community involvement, leadership ability, and influence on the region, public policy or quality of life.
As operations director at St. Joseph’s Hospital-North, Sara has oversight in areas that include quality of patient care and finance.
She works closely with all departments in the 216-bed hospital.
Dodds also had a leading role in the hospital’s $76-million expansion that was completed in 2020, and doubled the hospital’s bed capacity and increased services.
Dodds has been in her executive position since 2016.
She has been with BayCare since 2004 when she started at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, as a patient care technician, while attending nursing school. She became an RN at St. Joseph’s in Tampa in 2005.
Dodds is an original team member at St. Joseph’s Hospital-North since it opened in 2010, and has performed the roles of a charge nurse and a nurse manager prior to her current operations director position.
Nonprofits receive donations
For the fifth consecutive year, the Florida Blue Foundation hosted the #FloridaGives social media campaign asking Floridians to share on social media the nonprofits they supported and why, along with the hashtage #FloridaGives, according to a news release.
The foundation randomly selected five of the social media posts and surprised the Florida 501(c)3 charities with a $10,000 donation on Giving Tuesday, a global day of giving.
LYF Inc., in Land O’ Lakes, received one of the donations.
LYF Inc. fulfills the need for individuals with disabilities to learn life skills, independent choice-making and environment-specific learning by maximizing a quality-of-life approach.
Other nonprofits from across the state that received a donation include: Help Now of Osceola (Kissimmee); Epi-Cure (St. Augustine); Haitian American Nurses Association of Florida (Miami); and Wheels of Success (Tampa).
More than 2,000 people submitted names of nonprofits to the 2021 #FloridaGives campaign.
Hospitals get safety grade
The Medical Center of Trinity and Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point received an “A” Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade for fall 2021, according to a news release.
This national distinction recognizes a hospital’s achievements in protecting patients from harm and error in the hospital.
The Leapfrog Safety Grade is the only hospital ratings program based exclusively on hospital prevention of medical errors and harm to patients.
The grading system is peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public.
“The mutual focus on safe patient care between our medical staff and caregivers drives this performance in excellence,” said Tripp Owings, CEO of the Medical Center of Trinity, in the release.
“We are proud to provide high quality health care to our community,” said Owings.
The Leapfrog Group assigns an A, B, C, D or F grade to general hospitals across the country based on more than 30 national performance measures reflecting errors, injuries, accidents and infections, as well as systems hospitals have in place to prevent harm.
“Patient safety is our top priority when providing care to our community. Receiving the ‘A’ grade validates our commitment to safety,” said Gina Temple, CEO of Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point, in the release.
“I’m extremely proud of our caregivers and the work they do every day to provide safe, high quaity care to our community,” said Temple.
