Individual Awards

Jessy supported staff at her facility by working with them, implementing interventions, and ensuring the patients were safe. It was a very tough mission, but one that was completed successfully. It did more than streamline procedure. It resulted in about 95% of the staff satisfied - and ready to fight another day.

Jessy's April 2020 project, “Fall reduction in rehab by utilizing the Wireless Chair alarm and commode alarms”, improved the fall rate from 4.13 to 1.49 in rehab. Her unit saved nearly $171,470.

Jessy’s implementation of the spinal immobilization process was created as part of a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) from a post-fall sentinel event in the Med-Surg unit. The action plan was to create a protocol, stabilization kit, and incorporate it into the current fall prevention policy. As of January 2021, 100% of staff was trained.

Jessy consistently provides leadership in the application of the best practices and system improvements at the service and program level, and is the embodiment of what it means to be innovative in your clinical practice.

Karen has over 20 years in the med-surg nursing specialty and was instrumental in creating bariatric surgery pre-operative classes that were ultimately made mandatory for all patients having bariatric surgery at her facility.

She also authored and had published a 54- page guide for the bariatric surgery patients both in English and Spanish to complement the content of the class.

Because of the COVID- 19 pandemic the classes were modified to a virtual format, and the comprehensive, yet focused, education made a positive impact on patient outcomes after surgery. Today, there are three options for this pre-op education including in person, virtual, and in Spanish!

Finally, as a member and chair of the facility’s Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice Council, she mentors others in the translation of research findings into practice, using the Iowa model evidence-based practice approach.

In her next pursuit, Karen will be guiding the next research study on the use of patient preferred music during ambulation with staff nurses on a medical unit.

Elisa is a nurse educator and has been an advocate for specialty nursing certification, especially the specialty of medical-surgical nursing, for over 25 years. She has also tirelessly promoted "FailSafe," the facility-based certification program for nurses working toward their medical-surgical nursing certification.

Thanks to her efforts, over 25 nurses within the Elisa’s health system took advantage of this promotion to obtain their medical-surgical nursing specialty certification. AND, within her specific hospital facility, the number of nurses who obtained their medical-surgical certification increased by 15% in 2020!

Since 2017, Elisa has been a breakout session presenter at the local medical-surgical nursing symposium, and mentors experienced nurses to become specialty certified.

As a Nursing Development Professional, she has helped to teach content on testing strategies –and other medical/surgical nursing content in medical- surgical certification preparation courses– offered by her health system.

Elisa works hard with nursing leadership to mentor those interested in pursuing certification, and to celebrate certified nurses at her organization with nurse portraits displayed, and having their names engraved on a specialty nursing certification plaque for display.

Elisa is proud to be a CMSRN, and she encourages and challenges staff to become certified by promoting CMSRN and professional development activities toward nursing certification throughout the year.

Susan joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1997, and serves as the senior adviser for nursing, where she leads the Foundation’s nursing strategies in an effort to create a higher quality of care in the United States for people, families and communities.

In partnership with AARP, Susan also directs the Foundation’s Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, which seeks to ensure that everyone in America can live a healthier life, supported by a system in which NURSES are essential partners in providing care and promoting health.

Susan is also the senior scholar in residence and adviser on nursing to the President of the National Academy of Medicine, where she helped to lead the second Future of Nursing Study, which was released in the Spring of 2021. Susan was the study director of the recently published report by the Institute of Medicine, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.

She is also the recipient of FOUR honorary doctoral degrees, and the recipient of the prestigious American Red Cross 2009 Florence Nightingale Medal.

Since joining AMSN, Terry dedicated numerous hours, talent, and knowledge to AMSN. Her commitment to advancing the specialty of med-surg is evident in her volunteer efforts, as she tirelessly promotes leadership of the medical-surgical nurse at the point of care.

Terry has also served as chairperson for the CLDP (Clinical Leadership Development Program) task force, which created both the curriculum and the learning modules. Terry served as a content reviewer of the CLDP modules and then as the principal investigator of the CLDP evaluation study which occurred over the course of several years.

The findings and recommendations from the study will have a profound impact on the development of future initiatives in the strategic plan in the areas of education, competencies, coaching, and research.

She was also a very integral part of the Nightingale Challenge at AMSN, and helped to lead our group of med-surg nurses through a year-long college-level program in nursing leadership development.

Her dedication to the practice of nursing, research, and the promotion of the specialty of med-surg nursing are easy to see when looking at her curriculum vitae.

But this only tells a part of the story. Terry loves teaching - and loves to raise her students and colleagues up so that all can contribute and be the very best they can be.

Cleveland Clinic strongly supports nursing education and clinical competency, and fosters respectful nurse-nurse, nurse-physician, and interprofessional collaborations.

Cleveland Clinic embodies institutional support for medical-surgical nurses and promotes autonomy of nursing practice and nursing leadership. Cleveland Clinic advocates for and sustains a culture of environmental safety for patients and nurses.

Cleveland Clinic has also been a strong supporter of medical-surgical nurses in their institutions by supporting Certified Medical-Surgical Registered Nurse (CMSRN^®) certification through AMSN’s FailSafe Certification Program™ and by demonstrating excellence in medical-surgical nursing with two Cleveland Clinic units having received AMSN PRISM Awards^®.