Lower Keys Medical Center Honors Eight Staff Members at Annual Awards Dinner

Lower Keys Medical Center honored eight staff members at its annual employee awards dinner on March 25, spotlighting individual excellence against the backdrop of a health system that logged more than 134,000 patient encounters in 2025.

Brittany Slattery walked away with two of the night's top honors, named both overall Employee of the Year and clinical non-nurse Employee of the Year. Her double recognition stood out among the eight recipients, who were celebrated for achievements spanning patient care, volunteerism, and years of service to the Key West hospital.

Jody Houser, R.N., received the Frank Houtman Award for volunteerism, an honor recognizing the kind of community engagement that extends well beyond a staff member's daily clinical duties. Houser's award reflects an institutional emphasis on connecting hospital personnel to the broader Lower Keys community, not just to patients within LKMC's walls. Other honorees were recognized for long service milestones and excellence across inpatient, outpatient, and support roles at the hospital, which serves as the primary acute care facility for Monroe County's southernmost communities.

LKMC paired the staff recognition with its 2025 community benefit figures, reporting more than $133 million in total benefit through charity and uncompensated care. That number, combined with the 134,000-plus patient encounters recorded across the health system last year, forms the core of the hospital's public case for its role in the region.

The figures carry weight beyond a single celebratory dinner. As a publicly owned institution, LKMC operates within an ongoing community conversation about hospital governance and its long-term operator relationship, and metrics like those from 2025 are regularly cited in those discussions. Recognition events also serve a practical purpose: staff retention in a region that competes for clinical talent year-round while absorbing substantial seasonal population swings.

The hospital's announcement, published the week of April 7, situated the individual honors within that wider institutional story, presenting front-line staff achievement as central to sustaining the scope of service reflected in its 2025 numbers.