Valley Medical Center handed out its first DAISY Awards, which honor nurses for the skill and compassion they bring to patients and families everyday.

This year’s recipients are Colleen LeDrew, critical-care nurse; Mark Navarro, infusion-center nurse, and Erica Schindler, pediatric nurse.

DAISY stands for Diseases Attacking the Immune System and the recognition program is a partnership of healthcare organizations across the Unites States and in seven countries.

It is one of three programs the Barnes family created through The DAISY Foundation as a means of expressing their gratitude to the nursing profession for the care they experienced when J. Patrick Barnes was hospitalized in 1999 with idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP).

Barnes died of complications of the auto-immune disease at age 33.

The DAISY Foundation has been recognizing nurses since its inception in February 2011, with more than 20,000 nurses receiving awards.

Valley Medical Center became the 1,000th hospital to join The DAISY Foundation’s “Daisy Award for Extraordinary Nurses” program.

The program was piloted by the University of Washington’s Cancer Care Alliance in 1999.

“I am a big fan of the DAISY Award because of the stories people tell when they nominate a nurse,” said Scott Alleman, senior vice president of patient care services at the center in a release. “They are beautiful stories about how nurses have made an impact on people’s lives, typically at a time when those lives are most fragile. The DAISY Award recognizes an individual as a model caregiver who made a difference, something that all nurses aspire to.”

The DAISY Award winners were nominated by their peers, physicians, patients, their families, staff and administrators.

Valley Medical Center will give up to three nurses DAISY Awards each quarter.