Butler VA whole health nurse recognized with international award
Although she has developed the Whole Health program at VA Butler Healthcare from the ground up, Karen Justi has used experience from her past quarter-century in nursing to bring holistic health practices to the agency since she started there in 2020.
Justi, the Whole Health program manager at the Butler VA, earned international recognition last week when she was surprised with the DAISY Award, an honor given to nurses who go above and beyond to provide health care to patients.
Like many nurses before her who have been recognized for their work, Justi said she is just doing her duties as a nurse, but the honor was special to her because her daughter, a fellow nurse, helped recognize Justi with the award.
“My oldest daughter is an ICU nurse,” Justi said, “so knowing how significant a DAISY Award is, being able to share that with her, I was literally speechless.”
The DAISY Award is given by the DAISY Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit that gives patients, families and co-workers a way to express gratitude to nurses for what they do — “provide compassionate care to patients and their families.” DAISY stands for “Diseases Attacking the Immune System,“ and was created in honor of Patrick Barnes, who died in 1999 after being diagnosed with immune thrombocytopenia, as well as the nurses who cared for him during his treatment.
Justi said she was nominated for the DAISY Award by nurses on her team.
Justi joined the behavioral health department at the Butler VA in 2020, working first as a mindfulness coach. She became program manager for Whole Health about two years ago, and started leading mindfulness sessions, including classes in laughter yoga.
Justi said practices focused on whole health have grown to be more widely used in health care agencies in the 28 years she has been a nurse. So her work in the department at the VA saw her “flipping the script and no longer asking what’s the matter, but what matters” to her patients.
Justi said learning about how a patient lives their everyday life helps her develop a plan to give them positive practices that help them fulfill their routines. If what matters to a veteran patient is watching their children or grandchildren or staying active physically or in the community, their treatment plan should reflect those needs, according to Justi.
“If we don’t know what matters, we can’t tie clinical care into their needs,” Justi said. “Knowing what matters helps us be more impactful in meeting them where they are.”
While Justi works with patients one-on-one, she also leads group sessions with VA patients and staff, to decrease stress and promote positive ways of thinking. The bio written about Justi commends her for her ability to lead by example.
“(Justi) consistently demonstrates emotional intelligence, the ability to recognize, understand, manage and effectively manage her own emotions and the emotions of others,” the bio says. “She demonstrates enthusiasm in everything she does and is always optimistic. She is also a transformational leader, encouraging her team to utilize their unique qualities and bring their expertise to the table.”
The Butler VA’s Whole Health program has earned an “outstanding” rating two years in a row from the Veterans Affairs’ internal performance rating — the highest rating you can get from the review.
Justi credits the three other people in her department for making the Whole Health program successful. And while the award is an honor, Justi said one of the biggest rewards of her work is seeing her veteran patients react to laughter yoga, where she has people laugh out loud to help improve their mood.
“I do it in the Community Living Center, and a lot of the veterans who are in wheelchairs,” Justi said. “To watch them laugh — some of them have had strokes and can’t manipulate their muscles — it makes people so happy.”
