April 2026 Honoree
Joan Bevilacqua, RN
In the Allergy and Immunology Clinic, many of our patients must carry epinephrine with them at all times in case of anaphylaxis. For our allergy shot and oral food challenge patients, they must have them on hand when they come in for their visits so that the nurse validates that they have them and verifies that they are not expired.
Most of the epinephrine preparations do not expire quickly, so after carrying them around for months on end, the packaging starts to fall apart. Joanie saw this over and over again and thought there must be something we can do to make sure this life-saving medication is better protected for our patients.
She came up with the idea to use padded pencil cases which would hold the epinephrine (usually an EpiPen) perfectly. Over the course of the last year, she worked continuously on her own time and found a product that would work, obtained the correct logos to represent our organization and foundation well, ordered a sample of it to be sure (with her own money), applied for grant funding from the auxiliary foundation to cover the cost, was approved for the grant, ordered the cases, calculated out how to distribute them to patients across our 4 clinic sites, delivered them to the different sites, and she is now finally able to give these cases to patients (along with our other nurses).
Patients are thrilled! One mom shared, "I can't believe someone cares after all this time," referring to the tattered pharmacy bag and box that stored her son's life-saving epinephrine.
Joanie went so far above and beyond to make this project happen, and she did it entirely of her own volition. This will have an impact on every patient and family that receives one. Joanie is already considering when she will apply for another grant to get more, as this is a constantly revolving patient population.
Huge kudos to Joanie for thinking outside the box and working so hard to make this happen for our patients!
Most of the epinephrine preparations do not expire quickly, so after carrying them around for months on end, the packaging starts to fall apart. Joanie saw this over and over again and thought there must be something we can do to make sure this life-saving medication is better protected for our patients.
She came up with the idea to use padded pencil cases which would hold the epinephrine (usually an EpiPen) perfectly. Over the course of the last year, she worked continuously on her own time and found a product that would work, obtained the correct logos to represent our organization and foundation well, ordered a sample of it to be sure (with her own money), applied for grant funding from the auxiliary foundation to cover the cost, was approved for the grant, ordered the cases, calculated out how to distribute them to patients across our 4 clinic sites, delivered them to the different sites, and she is now finally able to give these cases to patients (along with our other nurses).
Patients are thrilled! One mom shared, "I can't believe someone cares after all this time," referring to the tattered pharmacy bag and box that stored her son's life-saving epinephrine.
Joanie went so far above and beyond to make this project happen, and she did it entirely of her own volition. This will have an impact on every patient and family that receives one. Joanie is already considering when she will apply for another grant to get more, as this is a constantly revolving patient population.
Huge kudos to Joanie for thinking outside the box and working so hard to make this happen for our patients!
Thank you, Joan, for your exceptional compassion, advocacy, and dedication to your patients. You truly make a difference.
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