Rise Awards

On May 11, 2023, Mercy Care recognized more than 200 community advocates and health care leaders at Mercy Honors. The RISE (RISE stands for Resilience, Innovation, Service and Empowerment.) awards celebrate individuals and organizations in our community who are working to make the lives of others better. The awards honor individuals and organizations in the three areas of Compassion, Innovation, and Advocacy and Collaboration. The RISE Lifetime Achievement Award honors the outstanding contributions of an individual that affects community health and wellness. And our ReMEMBER Kate Aurelius Award honors an employee that has made outstanding contributions to our members. Mercy Honors is a celebration that combines Mercy Care’s signature recognition events — the community RISE Awards and the employee ReMEMBER Kate Aurelius Award. Nominees and honorees are people who lead the way to promote health and wellness in our Arizona community.

Tara Sundem, Hushabye Nursery

“Tara is a neonatal nurse practitioner who, in the midst of the opioid crisis, noticed an increase in the number of babies being born substance-exposed. She also noticed that the clinician caring for the baby and the environment they fostered made a difference in the way the baby progressed through their withdrawals (meaning that babies who were in a calm/quiet environment where they were in the presence of their parents did better). This sparked Tara to seek out a different way to care for these babies and their families. Hushabye Nursery is the result—a dually licensed facility in Phoenix that focuses on getting the entire family healthy through outpatient behavioral health programs and an inpatient program. They have a 12-bed freestanding nursery that detoxes babies who have neonatal abstinence syndrome, where the parents can room in 24/7 and assist in caring for their baby. This program is the only one like it in the country. It has served over 450 babies in two years with amazing outcomes for both the babies and the parents and is gaining national recognition for the work Tara is doing.”