IU Health 2021 President's Values Leadership Award recipients named

Last month, Kevin Armstrong, executive vice president and chief mission and values officer, and Erin Lewis, senior vice president, general counsel, announced the 2021 President's Values Leadership Award (PVLA) winners. The surprised recipients were spontaneously honored by Armstrong, Lewis, and other leaders and team members.

PVLAs recognize team members who demonstrate extraordinary dedication to the IU Health vision, values and promise, both at work and in their community. There are five award categories: medical, nursing, professional, support and team.

Mohammad Al-Haddad, MD
Interim Division Director & Clinical Director of GI and Hepatology
IU Health University Hospital, IU Health Physicians
Medical recipient

Al-Haddad had a passion for medicine since childhood and followed two uncles into the medical profession. Now he's building his legacy while leading gastroenterology and hepatology at IU Health University Hospital, where he is the medical director of IU Health Destination Services while also serving as a professor at IU School of Medicine.

While attending a conference in Dubai, he met an international patient who was in desperate need of a liver patient. Al-Haddad was able to orchestrate an opportunity for the patient to travel to the U.S. and receive care at IU Health. During this time, he was in constant contact with the patient, his care team and the patient's family to ensure they were comfortable and well cared for.

Al-Haddad leads the way to positively impact the well-being of others in the community, and that example spreads through to his team. He helped create the Destination Services and Innovative Endoscopy program, which many patients have benefited from. Al-Haddad continues to grow the program, expanding the reach and impact of IU Health on patients around the globe.

Michelle Kidd, MS, RN, ACNS-BC, CCRN-K
Clinical Nurse Specialist, Critical Care
Ball Memorial Hospital, East Central Region
Nursing recipient

Kidd is a clinical nurse specialist for critical care in two Intensive Care units at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital. She also serves on multiple hospital-wide and system-wide teams and volunteers with many professional nursing associations.

Kidd achieved Silver Lean Certification in 2019 and is a driver of evidence-based process improvement methodologies. She led multiple policy changes at a system level that have made processes and protocols better for the end-users, bedside nurses and patients. With the clinical nursing staff, manager and nursing professional development triad, patient harm rates have declined to their lowest level and have been sustainable through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kidd is actively involved in influencing change and improvement within IU Health, Indiana and nationally. She thinks strategically, seeing a vision for the future while outlining the steps to achieve it. Her forward-thinking insights continually lead IU Health's critical care teams to greatness.

Ann Hannan
Director, Riley Cheer Guild & Manager of Music Therapy
Riley Hospital for Children, Academic Health Center
Professional Staff recipient

Over two decades ago, Hannan started her career as the only music therapist at Riley Hospital for Children. Since then, she has written book chapters, presented nationally and internationally, completed an ethics fellowship, and is now pursuing her MBA while still serving as director of the Riley Cheer Guild. Hannan is also an affiliate faculty member of the Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics, where she helps learners navigate ethical dilemmas in patient care.

Hannan is passionate about helping people, which drives her pursuit of excellence. She leads with mutual respect and trust. Hannan initiated the "optimization project," which allowed the music therapy team to develop a theory-based practice model. This project helped her team create a conceptual framework for understanding the patient's needs, preferences and heritage. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hannan and her team worked together to develop new ways of meeting patient needs virtually and in person while securing funding to provide instrument kits to patients and their families. Additionally, they offered live music and virtual resources for mindfulness and relaxation to frontline team members.

Hannan has a unique ability to make patients and team members feel loved and seen. She embodies and lives out the IU Health values in her work and leadership. Under her guidance, the music therapy team has become a leader in the field and many other programs look to them as a model.

Heather Fidler
Project Coordinator, Infection Prevention
Support Staff recipient

Fidler is a project coordinator on the Infection Prevention team who rose to the challenge of organizing large IU Health-led vaccine clinics. She ensures that clinic workers are well cared for and that system processes run smoothly so that every patient receives the best care.

From December 2020 through May 2021, Fidler led the setup and daily management of the COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic at the Neuroscience Center while balancing all of her responsibilities as project coordinator for the Infection Prevention department. As a result of her outstanding work, she was recruited to enlist IU Health staff to support the vaccine clinic at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She created a system that allowed volunteers to self-schedule with clear guidelines and expectations. Fidler had many long days, and the stakes were high, but her thoughtful and compassionate leadership made a monumental task look easy. Additionally, she streamlined the FIT testing process for the adult academic health center (AAHC), executing a staffing model that the entire IU Health system would adopt.

Fidler's efforts contributed to 211,000 Hoosiers getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and more than 1,000 team members being FIT tested in under six weeks, which is the best performance ever achieved in FIT testing at the AAHC.

IU Health Ball Heart & Lung Center
East Central Region
Team recipient

The IU Health Ball Heart & Lung Center team operates and succeeds by increasing access to care and decreasing readmissions of patients with chronic disease and complex care issues, and providing education to them and their families.

This team follows a model of care that puts the patient and family in the center of a talented group of healthcare individuals. The team meets the patient wherever they are (inpatient or outpatient). Each team member is a top performer who goes above and beyond to ensure that patients understand their disease process, medications and prescribed nutrition. Additionally, team members continually interact with patients about their participation in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. They present this information in a compassionate way that motivates patients to improve their quality of life. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they shifted the Heart Failure College (designed to educate patients and their families) from didactic classes to a virtual experience. This included making podcasts to help heart failure patients access vital information.

This team's most significant impact is the attainment of exceptional outcomes that exceed national metrics. The IU Health Ball Heart & Lung Center executes a unique model that combines all care modalities to provide the very best care to some of the most vulnerable patients with respect, kindness and empathy.