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Cathie Alff recognized as IHA Hospital Hero

News

November 6th, 2015 by Ric Hanson

Officials with the Cass County Health System report Cathie Alff, CNA was recognized recently as a Hospital Hero by the Iowa Hospital Association (IHA). Cathie was one of just ten hospital employees selected from the 174,000 hospital workers across the state to receive this honor at the 2015 Iowa Hospital Association’s Annual Meeting.
Cathie was nominated as a Hospital Hero for her compassionate care as a certified nurse aide in the CCMH Cardiac Rehab Department.

Cathie Alff was presented with a Hospital Hero award by Ted Townsend, Iowa Hospital Association Board Chair, and Todd Hudspeth, Cass County Health System Chief Executive Officer.

Cathie Alff was presented with a Hospital Hero award by Ted Townsend, Iowa Hospital Association Board Chair, and Todd Hudspeth, Cass County Health System Chief Executive Officer.

Todd Hudspeth, CCHS CEO, says “Cathie’s devotion to her patients is demonstrated every day by her compassion and willingness to go above and beyond for them. We are very proud and happy for her that the Iowa Hospital Association chose to recognize her dedication and commitment to excellence with this prestigious award.”

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The IHA program for the awards ceremony contained the following summary of Cathie’s nomination as a Hospital Hero: “Cathie Alff is a member of the Cass County Health System cardiac rehabilitation team, where she performs her clinical job duties in outstanding fashion every day. But it is the compassion, the empathy, the trust that she fosters from her patients and the caring she integrates into her work that make her a hero.

Some examples of how she goes above and beyond include: driving 20 miles in her own vehicle on her own time to assist a very anxious homebound patient with a Holter monitor device; taking a patient home who was too ill to drive; stopping to pick up a monitoring device to save a patient a trip to the hospital and giong to the nursing home to hook up a monitoring device so the patient would not have the stress of being transported to the hospital. Cathie’s good work ranges from volunteering to help a co-worker move her in-law into a nursing home to taking the time to sit with patients who are frightened or depressed and talking with them, comforting them, consoling them and crying with them. All of these actions are driven by a true sense of compassion and love for her patients and co-workers. Cathie has a unique insight into seeing the good in people and helping them see it too, so that it overshadows the weaknesses and becomes a strength to promote healing.

Cathie understand the big picture – she knows it is not about her; it’s about the patient. For her, every day at the hospital is not just “another day” at work; instead it is a profound moment in her patients’ lives and it’s their needs that have priority. Even when supporting her father and her significant other as they battled their own serious health issues, Cathie never wavered in her support and encouragement of the cardiac rehab patients she continues to care for every day. Cathie Alff truly embodies the meaning of what it is to be an Iowa Hospital Hero.