Recognition - The DAISY Award
UR Medicine Finger Lakes Health recognizes Casey Brooks, BSN, RN with the DAISY Nurse Leader Award. She has been part of the Finger Lakes Health team for over 6 years. She is the Clinical Leader at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital in Penn Yan.
Brooks received the Nurse Leader Daisy Award for 2025 based on nominations from her team.
The DAISY Nurse Leader Award was created to shine a light on the managers and others who do not typically have direct patient care as part of their work. Nurse Leaders are an integral part of the healthcare team. They inspire and influence their team members and play a major role in the collaboration of care across the organization. Their roles are vast including the central communicator, a mentor, an educator, and an organizer just to name a few.
The Nurse Leaders’ responsibilities are:
- Providing a haven of safety for staff, both physically and emotionally
- Ensuring standards are maintained for quality patient care are maintained
- Ensuring nurses have access to the technology and equipment they need – and the information
- Managing human and financial resources across staffing, supplies, and more
- Driving team development, resiliency, and competency, and meaningfully recognizing team members for the work they do for patients and families
- Providing a setting where compassion is valued, and staff, in turn, treat patients and their families with deep humanity.
Leaders are responsible for creating an environment where compassionate care by clinicians can thrive. The people who nominate them for The DAISY Nurse Leader Award are typically their staff who describe the impact leaders have on their ability to provide quality, compassionate care.
Nurse Leaders are recognized for:
- Creating an environment where attributes of trust, compassion, mutual respect, continued professional development, and ethical behavior are modeled and supported
- Being accessible, available, and responsive to the needs of their team
- Problem-solving and encouraging critical thinking
- Advocating for their teams
- Communicating the needs of their teams to organization leadership and communicating organizational priorities and directions to their teams
- Being compassionate leaders
Quotes from her nomination include:
Casey is an exceptional RN Clinical Leader. She is dedicated to her patients, colleagues, and visitors. She has worked very hard to improve the overall quality of care at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital. At any given time, you can find Casey working on staffing departments to match nurse-to-patient ratios, answering a call bell, triaging in the Emergency Department, assisting in a cardiac arrest, transporting patients and residents, scheduling other Clinical Leaders, cleaning and organizing rooms, being site administrator on off hours, and a plethora of other nursing and administrative roles.
Casey takes her position seriously, but always carries herself with pride and a smile! The patients, visitors, and staff members are very fortunate to have Casey as one of their caregivers, mentor, supervisor, and colleague!
If you have received extraordinary care by a nurse, or are a family member of someone who has been treated with great care, and would like to nominate her or him please visit:
Nomination boxes are also located throughout Geneva General Hospital and Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hospital.