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HERALD Collected items handed off
Green Acres feeds families
Serving food before holidays
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VOL. 36 NO. 48
NOVEMBER 27 - DECEMBER 3, 2025
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LIJ V.S. earns Leapfrog’s ‘A’ safety grade taining infection control and fostering a culture centered on patient safety. The hospital preLong Island Jewish Valley viously had received B grades Stream has received the high- but has steadily improved key est safety grade from a hospital safety measures to reach the watchdog group for fall 2025, highest level. The Leapfrog Group’s evaluplacing it among 15 hospitals in the Northwell Health system to ation includes a review of data from sources such as the Cenearn this distinction. The nationally recognized ters for Medicare and Medicaid Services, with a L e ap f ro g G ro u p, focus on staf fing wh i ch eva l u at e s levels, hand hospitals on their hyg i e n e c o m p l i ability to prevent ance, infection premedical er rors, vention, medicainjuries, infections tion safety and and accidents, responsiveness to stamped LIJ Valley critical events. The Stream with an ‘A’ hospital’s success rating, reflecting its stems from a collabcommitment to orative approach patient safety and involving clinical quality care. and non-clinical T h e L e a p f r o g DR. ANGEL MENG departments, with H o s p i t a l S a f e t y Medical director, a focus on transparGrade is a bench- LIJ Valley Stream ency, accountability mark focused on and continuous h o s p i t a l s a f e t y, assessing more than 3,000 improvement. Contributing largely to the acute-care hospitals across the top grade was the hospital’s country twice a year. LIJ Valley Stream’s top success in reducing infections grade acknowledged the hospi- and improving hand hygiene tal’s ongoing efforts to protect compliance, which involves not patients from preventable only clinical staff but also envihar m by implementing evi- ronmental services and frontdence-based protocols, mainConTInued on pAge 7
By ANGELINA ZINGARIELLO
azingariello@liherald.com
Courtesy Northwell Health
Angelik Bell, nurse case manager at LIJ Valley Stream, with the hospital’s president, Jason Tan. The facility’s support helped strengthen her family’s now-18-year tradition of providing Thanksgiving meals to those in need in the community.
Hospital nurse Angelik Bell continues turkey tradition By ANGELINA ZINGARIELLO azingariello@liherald.com
For 18 years, Angelik Bell has spent the weekend before Thanksgiving making sure families in her community have what they need for the holiday. This year marked a milestone for the 47-year-old Long Island Jewish Valley Stream Hospital nurse case manager, who held the annual turkey giveaway for the first time in her own Uniondale backyard on Saturday. Though the event has long been a tradition for her family, hosting it herself symbolized her step into a role she had watched her mother lead from her own home for the
past 17 years. Bell has worked at LIJ Valley Stream for almost 10 years. Growing up in Uniondale, she was inspired to become a nurse in her teens after helping care for her aunt, who had systemic lupus and needed ventilator support at home. Nurses taught her basic skills like suctioning and ventilator care, which encouraged her to pursue nursing. Service, however, was rooted in her life well before that. Her parents, Joanna and Ricky Richards, founded the nonprofit Harvest for the World after Bell survived a serious car accident in her early 20s. “I had a fractured spine, I had a lot of ConTInued on pAge 5
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t’s really a commitment and a testament to the heart of our hospital.