One of our oncology patients, who is currently being treated for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), failed to show up for his treatment. This patient is consistently on time or early and always communicates any changes to us. Stella recognized his failure to show up or call as out of character for him and took it upon herself to reach out to him on his cellphone. Stella was the triage nurse that day. She made several attempts to reach him – all of them unsuccessful.

She then notified his medical oncologist, who asked her staff to contact the patient’s niece. The niece confirmed that the patient lives alone, called his residential director, and requested a welfare check. The person doing the welfare check found the patient on the floor where he had fallen and lay for 10+ hours. He was too weak to get himself up and was out of reach of his phone. He was transported to our ED & admitted.

Had Stella simply written this off as a “no show” the outcome could have been very different. The patient asked that she be thanked for caring about him.