ANCC Announces 2017 National Magnet Nurse of the Year® Award Winners
Contact:
Rachel Farbman, 301-628-5062
rachel.farbman@ana.org
Silver Spring, MD — The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) announces the recipients of the 2017 National Magnet Nurse of the Year® Award.
The ANCC National Magnet Nurse of the Year® awards recognize the outstanding contributions of clinical nurses for innovation, consultation, leadership and professional risk-taking. Awards are presented in each of the five Magnet® Model components: Transformational Leadership; Structural Empowerment; Exemplary Professional Practice; New Knowledge, Innovations and Improvements; and Empirical Outcomes. The 2017 award winners were recognized at the ANCC National Magnet Conference® in Houston. This year’s recipients are:
Transformational Leadership: Mary Dixon Still, MSN, RN, ANP-BC, ACNS, CCRN, FCCM
Still, a Clinical Nurse specialist, works for Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, GA. Still has been recognized for her leadership in Sepsis mortality reduction, continuous renal replacement therapy, and a Molecular Absorbent Recirculating System. Through research, persistence and new technologies, Still has created various policies and protocols that have decreased mortality rates and shortened the average length of patients’ of hospital stay.
Structural Empowerment: John F. Shepard, BSN, RN, CCRN
Shepard is an RN Senior Partner with Indiana University Health-Methodist Hospital (IU Health) in Indianapolis, IN. In Shepard’s tenure at IU Health, he has created a reputation of advocating for patients and peers through endorsing a culture that promotes safe work practices. Recognizing the risk of his own professional burnout, Shepard implemented a nursing mindfulness meditation sessions. These brief mediation sessions focus on topics such as intention, compassion, and gratitude and have already demonstrated a positive impact on the hospital’s Healthy Work Environment initiative. Since its inception, overall employee satisfaction has increased and nurses feel more connected with their patients and each other.
Exemplary Professional Practice: Susan Gold, BSN, RN, ACRN
Gold works as a Nurse Clinician at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics (UW) in Madison, WI. Throughout the course of her career, Gold has made both a local and global impact. A 25 year veteran at UW, Gold has been specializing in the HIV clinic for the past 8 years. Since 2003, Gold has also been traveling to Africa to treat HIV orphans and educate caregivers. She is the first clinical nurse to ever be awarded both a Fulbright scholarship and a Nelson Mandela fellowship.
New Knowledge, Innovations, and Improvements: Laurie McNichol, MSN, RN, CNS, GNP, CWOCN, CWON-AP, FAAN
McNichol is a Clinical Nurse Specialist/ Wound Ostomy Continence Nurse with Cone Health – Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro, NC. In 2012, McNichol convened a consensus conference, consisting of twenty representatives from various nurse specialties, to discuss their findings linking skin damage to medical adhesives. After recognizing this as a widespread issue, McNichol coined the term Medical Adhesive Related Skin Injury (MARSI). Defining MARSI has led to research pertaining to how adhesives perform on patients and altered practice to improve the patient experience. McNichol is now published in nursing journals and is a coeditor of the Core Curriculum Wound textbook; she has given presentations and keynote addresses across six continents, and was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.
Empirical Outcomes: Melanie Roberts, DNP, RN-BC, CNS, CCNS, CCRN
Roberts works for the University of Colorado Health, Medical Center of the
Rockies and Poudre Valley Hospital (UC Health) as a Critical Care Clinical Nurse Specialist. A pursuit to improve quality of care and reduce mortality rates for cardiovascular surgical patients, led Roberts to initiate guidelines for Cardiac Surgery Advanced Life Support (CALS). Implementation of CALS focuses on avoiding cardiac arrest in post-operative patients. As a result of these guidelines, UC Health has noted that one hundred percent of those who had the CALS interventions and averted arrest survived. Roberts’ work has also resulted in a significant decrease in the number of patients needing chest compressions and therefore fewer injuries.
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About the Magnet Recognition Program®
The Magnet Recognition Program recognizes health care organizations for quality patient care, nursing excellence, and innovations in professional nursing practice. Consumers rely on the Magnet designation as the ultimate credential for high-quality nursing. Developed by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), Magnet is the leading source of successful nursing practices and strategies worldwide. US News & World Report utilizes the Magnet designation as a primary competence indicator in its assessment of almost 5,000 hospitals to rank and report the best medical centers in 16 specialties.
About ANCC
The mission of the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association (ANA), is to promote excellence in nursing and health care globally through credentialing programs. ANCC's internationally renowned credentialing programs certify and recognize individual nurses in specialty practice areas. ANCC recognizes health care organizations that promote nursing excellence and quality patient outcomes while providing safe, positive work environments. In addition, ANCC accredits health care organizations that provide and approve continuing nursing education. ANCC is the only nurse credentialing organization to successfully achieve ISO 9001:2008 certification.