Noor Shaik rushed to the bedside of a patient with severe diabetes complications, who had remained upbeat while undergoing surgery to address a foot infection.

The woman was now crying uncontrollably, but not due to pain from her operation that morning. What caused her outburst was that her only hair tie had been lost in the operating room.

And the wild curls she couldn’t keep out of her face were a breaking point.

Shaik, a third-year neurology resident at Penn, ducked out during her break and returned with a $3 pack of hair ties.

“Now she was crying with joy,” Shaik recalled. “Three dollars at Target made her feel appreciated and valued.”

The interaction was so meaningful to Shaik that she proposed creating a program through which health care providers could expense small items that help make patients feel more at ease during their hospital stay.

The initiative, called PennHOPES, has been so popular with patients and providers at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania that Penn has expanded it to Pennsylvania Hospital and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

“My intention was to help patients, but seeing how providers are responding to it has been very heartwarming,” Shaik said. “These small, meaningful moments also help us reconnect with why we got into medicine — to help people.”

PennHOPES was funded last August with $5,000 and has so far spent about $2,500 on 70 gifts.

Providers can request an Amazon gift card to buy a small pick-me-up or helpful item for a patient who will be at the hospital for at least five days.

Gifts must be less than $50 and cannot be related to their care. PennHOPES receives one or two requests a week.

Gifts have included cookies for a patient who spent their birthday in a hospital bed, reading glasses and a book for a patient who didn’t enjoy watching the television in their room, and a shaving kit for a patient whose beard was getting stuck in their face mask.