Partner in Excellence Award: Friendship Inn

Bob Page: Friendship Inn is this remarkable little house right down state line that is nondescript. I mean, you can go by it, and you think it's just a normal house. But it's kind of a refuge.

Tammy Peterman: Friendship Inn is a home away from home for many patients and their families, receiving care and treatment and support in our health system. Without the Friendship Inn, many of these families wouldn't be able to be as close to their loved one.

Rebecca Larason: They don't have to spend time in an isolated, expensive hotel room. They don't have to spend their days and nights in a waiting room. They have a warm face of Kathy Bradley to greet them, with a smile when they come into the home. Kathy makes it a home.

Rebecca Moburg: She is the innkeeper, but she's so much more than that. Kathy Bradley is everything. To the Inn she is comfort. She is support. She is a voice of reason. She's a calming presence.

Kathy Bradley: The people that use the Friendship Inn have come here for a crisis. They've not come here for a vacation. Many of them are stressed. Many of them are uncertain of what's going to happen over at the hospital. They're so close that they can see the hospital through the trees. That that is so comforting to them.

Bob Page: First time I went down there, I didn't know what to even expect. So I walk in and there's the kitchen. And there's a little dining room. And there's a living room with a couch and some chairs. And I'm like, "I feel like I'm in my grandma's house, right?" I mean, you go in there, it had that homey feel to it.

Kathy Bradley: The property was bought in 1995. There were two women. One was Pam Lee. One was Pam Gable. Pam Lee was a hospice social worker. And Pam Gable had come from Dodge City, Kansas for her dad to be on hospice service. It was their brain child to have a home away from home for people who were getting medical services. The rooms are named after their parents Chip, Ann, and the last rooms Lee and Theissen. But the most fabulous thing that we have at the Inn, is a long front porch in front of the house. We even had a family that shared later, when their loved one was in the hospital getting his liver transplant, they planned their daughter's wedding on our front porch.

Rebecca Moburg: There is such a lovely congruence between my work here with patients and their families, and what happens over at the Friendship Inn. My current role allows me to see families in crisis. Families who need resources. Families who are here from out of town, out of state. And people who really need those types of accommodations.

Rebecca Larason: The more that you learn about the lives that we touch, the more that you understand the need.

Kathy Bradley: I think that gives me a passion and people say, "Thank you, thank you", all the time to me as if I'm doing it. But I always tell them, "My board of directors has to keep the lights on because I live here. So you might as well enjoy it too."

Tammy Peterman: This board is really remarkable. That this is a group of professionals who come together every month to work on very specific things to help support and move forward the vision of this wonderful home. This board has a really big vision for the future for Friendship Inn.

Rebecca Moburg: The health system is growing rapidly. We serve so many patients with unique needs from all over the world. And to grow the Friendship Inn, in my opinion, is imperative. That way we can serve more people, we can accommodate more people. We can give more people that home away from home that they need when they're here.

Kathy Bradley: They are so over the top gracious, to be able to be somewhere where it's free or $30 if they want to. And we've never changed the price in 22 years. For some of our folks that we serve our friendship Inn, even though it's a hundred years old, that house is nicer than their own homes. There's many times that it feels like a family.

Bob Page: I think friendships have been developed in Friendship Inn throughout the years.

Tammy Peterman: I think we've changed lives, because we've had the Friendship Inn very close to our campus.

Rebecca Moburg: We've got a lot of people to serve, and I think the sky's the limit with the Friendship Inn.

Rebecca Larason: Just to be associated with the University of Kansas Health System in itself is an honor. And to be in the Hall of Fame for the health system is an honor. And we are extremely grateful for that honor.