NNRH's Sue Herrman wins 2024 Mercy Award

ELKO — Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital executive assistant Sue Herrman was named its 2024 Mercy Award Winner.

Named in honor of Lifepoint Health founding Chairman Scott Mercy, the award honors one employee from each Lifepoint Health facility in the United States who makes major impacts the lives of others.

Herrman said her role involves collaborating with hospital executives, including Chief Nursing Officer Becky Jones, Chief Financial Officer Dale Guffey and Chief Executive Steve Simpson.

"This month, it'll be 12 years that I worked here at the hospital. I moved here from Denver, Colorado, and worked at the dialysis center here at the hospital for three years," she said. Then, she said, she moved to the main hospital offices and has kept her executive assistant position since.

"I manage all of the contracts here at the hospital," including temporary physicians staffing to "cover calls and fill in gaps when we need call coverage or clinic coverage, when doctors are out on vacations and need time off."

"I work directly with the vendors to try and get physicians here in place so that we don't have to ship any of our patients out," Herrman said.

"I feel like every year I have grown a little bit more in what I've done, and my responsibilities increase a little bit more every year," she said. "From the beginning where I was just managing calendars and doing basic administrative things, my job has developed more as a part of the administration team."

Starting in late 2023, Herrman became the chair for the hospital's Patient and Family Advocacy Committee. "We have quarterly meetings right now. Soon, we're going to be having meetings more frequently, and it's basically a platform where we meet and talk about ideas for how we can improve the patient experience here. We want to try and make our patients and our families feel like they're getting the best care," she said.

"The families who sometimes are going through a difficult situation with a family member, we want to make sure that they feel respected and valued and that we're giving that patient the best care we possibly can."

She said she's never looked back.

"I love my job. I love coming to work," she said. "I am surrounded by so many people who help me excel in my job and many people who I look up to. There are many people here at the hospital who are doing such amazing work in taking care of patients. We have such a strong team here at the hospital. It's kind of like a family, basically. We're all trying to do the right thing and it's all centered around the patients and the families and making our community healthier and trying to make everybody who walks through our doors feel valued."

She said she admires many people working at the hospital. "Especially those working in the front line with all of our patients, like the nurses in the ER and the caseworkers upstairs who are working with families so hard. And our direct admin team here is so strong and every day, they try to come up with ideas to make our hospital better," Herrman said.

"Our leadership team is working daily to try and improve the patient experience here at our hospital. They're involved in leadership — surrounding our patients, surrounding our families, listening to stories — and through those stories, being able to listen to the patients' stories to where we can improve where we might be falling a little short," she said.

"The hospital is involved in so many community things, like Relay For Life. I love to volunteer for anything the hospital gets involved in. I try and do what I can. I try to volunteer for our healthcare clinic. The Polar Plunge for the Special Olympics, we raise money. We gather a team and go down to the park and jump in the cold water to honor our Special Olympians here."

The hospital has been a American Cancer Society Relay For Life fundraiser for eight years now. "This year, we raised more money than we ever have. We raised $13,200," Herrman said.

"And then the hospital administration matches that dollar-per-dollar. So all totaled, we raised $26,400," said hospital spokesman Steve Burrows.

"Sue is a huge part of that," he said. "For all of those community events that we do, they wouldn't happen without Sue. That's the honest truth.

"She works so hard day in and day out," Burrows said. "Lifepoint is a national company with 70,000 employees. Sue has been honored as a semifinalist for this award. So that means that she's in the top 60 employees out of 70,000 employees across the country. And we're really, really proud of her. We're so excited to have her represent us back in Nashville at the end of August. We couldn't have a better representative for our hospital or for Elko, that's for sure."