The Magnet Recognition Program(R) recognizes exemplary healthcare organizations for quality patient care, nursing excellence, and innovations in professional nursing practice. Consumers rely on the Magnet(R) 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. The US News & World Report uses 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 12 specialties. Today, the Magnet credential stands as the highest international acknowledgment of nursing excellence in healthcare organizations around the world.
The National Magnet Nurse of the Year awards recognizes the outstanding contributions of clinical nurses to innovation, consultation, leadership, and professional risk-taking. Awards are presented in each of the 5 Magnet Model components: Transformational Leadership; Structural Empowerment; Exemplary Professional Practice; New Knowledge, Innovations, and Improvements; and Empirical Outcomes. The 2018 award winners were recognized at the ANCC National Magnet Conference in Denver. This year's recipients are the following.
Transformational Leadership: Elizabeth Batcher, BSN, RN, CEN
An emergency department (ED) nurse at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla in La Jolla, California, Batcher is a catalyst for change. In the ED, she implemented a training program to better care for patients with acute respiratory failure and worked with the sepsis team to establish an expedited treatment process that saves lives. As chair of the Clinical Mentor Committee, Batcher motivates staff at all levels to work together to improve the patient experience. She is a committed teacher and mentor who leads efforts to transition new nurses and ensure they succeed.
Structural Empowerment: Lindsay Norris, BSN, RN
Norris is an oncology nurse at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City. She is also a cancer patient, who was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer at age 33 years. Her experience fundamentally changed her perspective of how nurses care for patients. During her treatment, she shared her thoughts in a blog post: "Dear Every Cancer Patient I Ever Took Care of, I'm Sorry. I Didn't Get It." Her riveting message quickly went viral and continues to inspire nurses around the world, with 1 million views and counting. Her outlook empowers nurses to think critically about their approach and cultivate a caring relationship with patients and families.
Exemplary Professional Practice: Yuki Asakura, PhD, RN, ACHPN, OCN, ACNS-BC
Dr Asakura is a palliative care advanced practice nurse at Parker Adventist Hospital in Parker, Colorado. She formed the hospital's 1st Palliative Care program to improve knowledge and awareness and collaborated with an interdisciplinary team to increase palliative care referral volume by 400%. A well-known expert, respected leader, and mentor in the oncology and palliative care community, her mission is to educate clinicians, physicians, patients, and families around the globe. In her native Japan, she is a strong advocate for end-of-life care to minimize the suffering of people with advanced illness.
New Knowledge, Innovations, and Improvements: Sandy Quigley, MSN, RN, CPNP-PC, CWOCN
A clinical specialist in Wound, Ostomy & Continence Care at Boston Children's Hospital, Quigley is a universally respected nurse leader in the assessment, prevention, and management of pediatric hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs). Her innovative research identified evidence-based, nurse-led practice changes that fundamentally transformed care of HAPIs in infants and children worldwide. Most recently, she worked with nursing colleagues to develop the Braden QD (D is for device) scale to address pressure injuries from devices, a significant cause of injuries in pediatric patients. The Braden QD Scale was developed from data derived from a broad, diverse sample of hospitalized pediatric patients preterm to 21 years old, including cardiac patients, and predicts both immobility and medical device-related pressure injuries. It provides acute care pediatric clinicians with 1 instrument to predict both immobility- and device-related pressure injuries across diverse age and clinical populations.
Empirical Outcomes: Jobic Ray Butao, BSN, RN, CCRN
Butao is a clinical nurse in the intensive care unit (ICU) at West Kendall Baptist Hospital in Miami, where he chairs the ICU's Unit Based Practice Council. He has led collaborative efforts to decrease catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) and central-line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) to a sustained rate of zero and implemented a program using a checklist to successfully prevent hospital-acquired conditions. Butao's interprofessional rounding initiative to monitor invasive-line patients has kept the ICU CAUTI- and CLABSI-free for 12 months. This exemplary practice is now in place throughout the hospital with the same impressive results and will be rolled out system-wide in the future.