Haywood Regional Medical Center Names 2023 Mercy Award Winner

Haywood Regional Medical Center (HRMC) recently announced that Kim Jenkins, RN has been recognized as the facility’s 2023 Mercy Award winner. The Mercy Award recognizes one employee from each of LifePoint Health’s facilities who profoundly touches the lives of others and best represents the spirit and values on which the company was founded.

The Mercy Award is an annual recognition program established in 2002 to honor the life and contributions of Scott Mercy, LifePoint’s founding chairman and chief executive officer. The award is considered the highest honor a LifePoint employee can receive.

“At Haywood Regional Medical Center, we share LifePoint’s commitment to Making Communities Healthier, and we recognize this is supported by the good work and service of our employees on and off the job,” said Chris Brown, RN, CEO of HRMC. “We are extremely proud to recognize Kim Jenkins for her efforts on behalf of our patients and our community. She goes above and beyond each and every day to ensure that every person she encounters receives the highest level of care and compassion.”

Jenkins has been an employee of HRMC since January of 2017, and during that time she has worked her way up from a floor staff nurse to Charge Nurse and now to the Clinical Supervisor on Med-Surg. “She has done so by demonstrating her knowledge of the Med-Surg Unit, her ability to form positive working relationships internally and externally, and through her strong work ethic. She is known by her colleagues as a person who is always willing to lead the way caringly and compassionately,” Brown shared.

After our community was devastated following the historic flooding from Tropical Storm Fred in August 2021, Kim sprang into action to give of herself both in time and money.  She was instrumental in the beginning efforts to rebuild the church she attended and help those in our community that were affected by the flooding.  Kim continued throughout the cleanup and rebuilding process by checking in on those affected, often anonymously giving to them so that they could sustain, rebuild, and move forward.

In the community, Jenkins is active in helping others both publicly and privately, sponsoring children in need through various programs from backpacks at the start of school to Christmas gifts and beyond. Brown said, “Kim represents the values embodied by the Mercy Award and I am proud to have her represent Haywood Regional Medical Center as our 2023 recipient.”

Each hospital winner, including Jenkins, will be considered for LifePoint’s 2023 companywide Mercy Award. The companywide winner will be announced this summer and honored during a ceremony in Nashville, Tenn., in August.