May 2026
Stephanie
Alvarado
,
RN
3700 Neonatal ICU
Loma Linda University Children's Hospital
Loma Linda
,
CA
United States
Stephanie consistently demonstrates patient- and family-centered care through her compassion and thoughtful coordination of discharge education, home preparation, and rooming-in sessions for parents.
This nomination for Stephanie Alvarado, BSN, RNC, is long overdue.
In the five years that Stephanie has been a nurse in our NICU, she has truly made her mark. As a bedside nurse, she has clinically excelled while caring for highly complex patients. Very recently, she used her keen assessment skills to identify a sudden change in a patient's condition. Because of her prompt escalation, the infant required emergency bedside surgery that ultimately saved the baby's life. Her clinical judgment is, without doubt, exceptional.
Last year, during our Magnet Redesignation journey, Stephanie volunteered to serve as a Magnet Champion and successfully prepared our team for the site visit. With enthusiasm, she recruited two additional peers to help lead the effort and proudly represented the LLUCH team in Atlanta at the Magnet Pathway Annual Conference, demonstrating a true commitment to professionalism in nursing and transformational leadership.
Stephanie also led our bedside team through a period of high census and acuity amid staffing challenges with unwavering positivity and graciousness.
Continuing to grow and find new ways to use her talents, Stephanie recently assumed the role of Parent Discharge Educator for the NICU. In this position, she has implemented numerous changes and updates that have significantly streamlined our discharge processes. As an effective change agent, she has introduced multiple electronic innovations, collaborating closely with our LEAP Service Line team to optimize the use of EPIC within NICU operations.
She completely restructured the process for ophthalmology exams, making it more efficient in its use of resources while preventing gaps in care. Through collaboration with the outpatient ophthalmology clinic, every patient requiring follow-up eye care now has an appointment scheduled before discharge, eliminating missed follow-up opportunities for our most at-risk patients.
Stephanie also transformed a previously paper-based Kardex process into an electronic workflow. Working with the LEAP Informatics team, she helped design EPIC tools that identify patients based on trigger criteria. She also helped create real-time progress note templates for providers, improving documentation, increasing availability of exam results for the multidisciplinary team, and making information more accessible to families through MyChart.
Additionally, she recently converted our hearing screen process from a binder containing patient labels into an electronic report that is remotely accessible to hearing screeners. This innovation allows screeners to immediately view both the number of patients requiring exams and each patient's physical location within LLUCH. The result has been a decreased workload for the nursing team while improving operational efficiency for our partners at ALGO.
These changes have been significant and necessary, creating meaningful improvements at the bedside.
However, Stephanie's greatest impact has been on the families preparing to take their babies home for the very first time.
In this role, Stephanie is truly a breath of fresh air. She is highly dedicated, consistently embraces challenges head-on, and always goes above and beyond. She is a tireless "worker bee" who consistently follows through on her ideas.
To reduce questions from parents after discharge—whether during follow-up phone calls or calls back to the unit—Stephanie collaborated with our outpatient pharmacy team to successfully implement the NICU "Med to Bed" Program. Parents now receive dedicated medication education directly from a pharmacist regarding the medications their baby will be taking at home.
Stephanie has also been a strong advocate for enhanced interpreter services for our limited English-speaking families. When the opportunity arose to implement a direct dial option for interpreter services through Proprio, Stephanie immediately recognized its potential and saw the project through to completion. Last week, the service officially launched with unique QR codes that allow families to directly access interpreter services without unnecessary communication delays.
Stephanie consistently demonstrates patient- and family-centered care through her compassion and thoughtful coordination of discharge education, home preparation, and rooming-in sessions for parents.
One recent family shared:
"Thank you, Stephanie, for taking the time to walk me through the process of enrolling in MyChart. She was patient, kind, approachable, and very willing to help, making the experience both smooth and informative. It really made me feel cared for, and with her help, I felt ready to take my baby home."
Our team is incredibly fortunate to have such a dedicated nursing professional as part of our NICU family. We are proud to nominate Stephanie Alvarado for the DAISY Award, and we hope it is clear why we believe she is so deserving of this recognition.
In the five years that Stephanie has been a nurse in our NICU, she has truly made her mark. As a bedside nurse, she has clinically excelled while caring for highly complex patients. Very recently, she used her keen assessment skills to identify a sudden change in a patient's condition. Because of her prompt escalation, the infant required emergency bedside surgery that ultimately saved the baby's life. Her clinical judgment is, without doubt, exceptional.
Last year, during our Magnet Redesignation journey, Stephanie volunteered to serve as a Magnet Champion and successfully prepared our team for the site visit. With enthusiasm, she recruited two additional peers to help lead the effort and proudly represented the LLUCH team in Atlanta at the Magnet Pathway Annual Conference, demonstrating a true commitment to professionalism in nursing and transformational leadership.
Stephanie also led our bedside team through a period of high census and acuity amid staffing challenges with unwavering positivity and graciousness.
Continuing to grow and find new ways to use her talents, Stephanie recently assumed the role of Parent Discharge Educator for the NICU. In this position, she has implemented numerous changes and updates that have significantly streamlined our discharge processes. As an effective change agent, she has introduced multiple electronic innovations, collaborating closely with our LEAP Service Line team to optimize the use of EPIC within NICU operations.
She completely restructured the process for ophthalmology exams, making it more efficient in its use of resources while preventing gaps in care. Through collaboration with the outpatient ophthalmology clinic, every patient requiring follow-up eye care now has an appointment scheduled before discharge, eliminating missed follow-up opportunities for our most at-risk patients.
Stephanie also transformed a previously paper-based Kardex process into an electronic workflow. Working with the LEAP Informatics team, she helped design EPIC tools that identify patients based on trigger criteria. She also helped create real-time progress note templates for providers, improving documentation, increasing availability of exam results for the multidisciplinary team, and making information more accessible to families through MyChart.
Additionally, she recently converted our hearing screen process from a binder containing patient labels into an electronic report that is remotely accessible to hearing screeners. This innovation allows screeners to immediately view both the number of patients requiring exams and each patient's physical location within LLUCH. The result has been a decreased workload for the nursing team while improving operational efficiency for our partners at ALGO.
These changes have been significant and necessary, creating meaningful improvements at the bedside.
However, Stephanie's greatest impact has been on the families preparing to take their babies home for the very first time.
In this role, Stephanie is truly a breath of fresh air. She is highly dedicated, consistently embraces challenges head-on, and always goes above and beyond. She is a tireless "worker bee" who consistently follows through on her ideas.
To reduce questions from parents after discharge—whether during follow-up phone calls or calls back to the unit—Stephanie collaborated with our outpatient pharmacy team to successfully implement the NICU "Med to Bed" Program. Parents now receive dedicated medication education directly from a pharmacist regarding the medications their baby will be taking at home.
Stephanie has also been a strong advocate for enhanced interpreter services for our limited English-speaking families. When the opportunity arose to implement a direct dial option for interpreter services through Proprio, Stephanie immediately recognized its potential and saw the project through to completion. Last week, the service officially launched with unique QR codes that allow families to directly access interpreter services without unnecessary communication delays.
Stephanie consistently demonstrates patient- and family-centered care through her compassion and thoughtful coordination of discharge education, home preparation, and rooming-in sessions for parents.
One recent family shared:
"Thank you, Stephanie, for taking the time to walk me through the process of enrolling in MyChart. She was patient, kind, approachable, and very willing to help, making the experience both smooth and informative. It really made me feel cared for, and with her help, I felt ready to take my baby home."
Our team is incredibly fortunate to have such a dedicated nursing professional as part of our NICU family. We are proud to nominate Stephanie Alvarado for the DAISY Award, and we hope it is clear why we believe she is so deserving of this recognition.