Two children’s hospital staff honored with Impact Awards for their extraordinary work to support our youngest patients

Employees at our children’s hospital welcome life’s most profound emotions into their daily lives. They share with patients and families in the joys of activity and recovery – and they are present through some of the most difficult moments a person can experience, including the illness and death of a child.

In between, staff at M Health Fairview Masonic Children's Hospital find ways to make each visit and hospital stay as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. The hospital’s Parent and Family Advisory Council (PFAC), formerly the Parent Advisory Board, created the Impact Award in 2020 to celebrate the healthcare workers who are driven to discover new ways of supporting patients and their families.

Recipients are nominated and voted on by the council – volunteer parents and caregivers of children having inpatient or outpatient treatment at the hospital. PFAC is the hospital’s longest-running volunteer council. Over two decades, it has acted as a bridge between patient families and hospital staff, advising leadership and advocating for responsive programming.

Read on to learn about the recipients of the 2020 and 2021 Impact awards, their incredible stories, and critical work at our hospital.

2020 Impact Award: Mark Spitzack, Coordinator of Perinatal & Pediatric Support Projects

Mark Spitzack started his professional life as a choir director and organist, a passion he continues alongside a long and impactful career at the children’s hospital. After starting as a part-time office assistant, he has grown into a leader on the patient and family support team – finding fulfilment and overlap between his work with patients and his love of sharing music.

“My work as a church choir leader and organist has always been about ministry and service to others,” said Spitzack. “Now, I’m able to put that same service mindset to work at the hospital.”

Spitzack received the Impact Award last year in large part for his work on the Pediatric Bereavement Follow-Up Project. Over the past decade, he took what started as a grassroots effort to send cards to grieving families and made it into a standard practice for all families who have lost a child at the hospital. Spitzack advocated for customized cards, bearing the hospital’s name and a vibrant tree – similar to a tree at the hospital that family members and staff hang bells on for the annual Pediatric Day of Remembrance. For Spitzack, it was important that the card obviously come from the hospital and reflect families’ unique experiences.

He worked closely with both hospital leadership and PFAC to determine and advocate for a follow-up message that would be most meaningful and appropriate for grieving families. Ultimately, he partnered with St. Paul-based Woodchuck USA to create wooden, tree-shaped mementos. He now sends these to all grieving families two months after they’ve lost their child, with additional follow-up mailings sent at six and 12 months. For each memento, Woodchuck also plants a seedling in memory of the patient at its Cushing, Minnesota reforestation site.

“One of the top things that people appreciate when they’ve lost a loved one at the hospital is knowing we haven’t forgotten about them,” said Spitzack. “I’m proud of the fact that I was able to expand this project and make it better for families. We want them to know that long after their time with us we still care.”

Learn how you can make a difference with M Health Fairview. 

2021 Impact Award: Jason Albrecht, Director of Patient & Family Support Services

The 2021 Impact Award was given posthumously to Jason Albrecht, a longtime employee at M Health Fairview Masonic Children’s Hospital who was constantly finding new ways to support patients and their families.

His work was informed in part by his own childhood illness. Albrecht was the first person known to be diagnosed with pleuropulmonary blastoma, an aggressive form of cancer in the lungs and chest, and its first known survivor. He began treatment when he was 7 years old. Over the following four decades, he started a family, spent as much time as possible in the great outdoors, and improved the lives of countless other children with illnesses through his work at the hospital.

Albrecht helped build our children’s hospital into what it is today – a community focused on medical innovation, but also one that cares for the whole patient and their family. After starting as a Child-Family Life Specialist, he grew to take on a number of leadership roles at the hospital, most recently working with Spitzack on the patient and family support team.

Throughout his career, Albrecht developed several projects to put the patient and family at the center of their care team. These included new technologies to help them connect to their community outside the hospital, welcome videos to prepare families for a hospital stay, specially designed rooms to help children recover healthy sleep patterns after disruption, and more.

He also brought an invaluable drive and perspective to his coworkers, training them on these new initiatives and technologies and modeling the importance of holistic care.

“Everything Jason did, he did with love, care and compassion,” said PFAC Chair Natalie Bushaw. “His work resonated with each of us on the council, including many who had direct experiences with him over the years and all whose families were so positively impacted by his work.”

The Parent and Family Advisory Council is open to parents and guardians of children currently receiving inpatient or outpatient treatment at our hospital. Learn more about joining the council.