Adolfo Rivera
May 2019
Adolfo
Rivera
,
LVN
Pain Clinic
VA El Paso Healthcare System
El Paso
,
TX
United States

 

 

 

These innate steps that LVN Rivera took ensured the veteran would be safe on his journey back home. 
LVN Adolfo Rivera is consistently attuned to the safety and well-being of our Veterans, for example:  

In Dec 2018, a Veteran traveled from Las Cruces to ELPVA due to an appointment at the Pain Clinic. The patient's baseline oxygen regimen is a continuous 2 liters nasal cannula that maintains his oxygen saturation at 94%. The patient arrived at the Pain Clinic and checked in with the MSAs. The MSA noticed he was out of breath and notified the Pain Clinic staff.   LVN Adolfo immediately walked the patient into his office and placed the patient on monitors to check his oxygen saturation on room air.  It was 87%.   

LVN Adolfo started gathering information on the patient. The patient disclosed that he ran out of oxygen during his commute to the ELPVA.  He stated that he normally drives his truck to his appointments and that his extra oxygen tanks are in his truck, but for whatever reason, today, he decided that he would drive his car to his appointment. 

The patient stated that he just needs to rest and will be ok going back home to Las Cruces after his Pain Clinic appointment. This is where LVN Rivera's nursing instinct kicked in. He checked the patient's medical record for a consult to prosthetics and found an active one. He called Prosthetics to get the Veteran a new tank. He asked the Veteran for his ID and his car keys to go retrieve the Veteran's empty tank from his car, take it to prosthetics to exchange it for a new tank, stopped by ASU for a new nasal cannula, and brought the oxygen system to Pain Clinic. These innate steps that LVN Rivera took ensured the veteran would be safe on his journey back home. 

By his instinctive actions and total dedication to Veteran care, LVN Rivera reflected credit upon himself and upheld the highest standards of the El Paso VA.   These actions uphold the new mission statement of the El Paso VA: Provide Compassionate Quality Service to Veterans.