As our winning team noted in their application, “Good nurses inspire themselves, but great nurses inspire each other.” That’s exactly what each of this year’s award recipients has accomplished—they’ve provided inspiration to their peers (and the American Nurse Journal staff) through their hard work and dedication to improving patient care and enhancing the nursing workplace.
In the following pages you’ll read about initiatives aimed at enhancing nurses’ confidence with patient mobility, recognizing the hard work of colleagues, mentoring new nurses in a cardiac intensive care unit, mitigating maternal hypertensive disorders, addressing challenges faced by clinical nurse educators, providing ambulatory circumcision procedures for newborns who can’t have the procedure before discharge, providing advanced practice nurse coverage, and improving nurse communication. These teams offer thoughtful discussion of the challenges they faced, the research they conducted, and the interventions they implemented—all with the goal of serving patients and supporting each other.
The American Nurse Journal staff wishes to thank all of the teams who shared their stories with us. You took time out of your very busy lives to tell us (frequently in great detail) about the projects you’re so rightfully proud of. Thank you for your innovation and your inspiration.
Teams impacting teams
The editorial staff would like to send a special thank you to the Magnet® Program Office team for their work supporting nursing teams on their Magnet journey. They’re the unsung heroes who impact multiple organizations as they empower nursing teams and enhance patient outcomes.
WINNER
Cedars Sinai Medical Center ICU Team
This team of nurses saw an opportunity to improve collaboration with regard to patient mobility. Before implementing their intervention, mobility champions focused primarily on safe patient handling. The lack of a mobility workflow, low nurse confidence, and knowledge deficits left patients on bedrest for extended periods.
In 2022, physicians and nurse practitioners collaborated with physical medicine and rehabilitation to develop guidelines for safe patient mobilization; however, nurses didn’t receive this information. The result: Even if patients met mobilization criteria, nurses couldn’t advocate for out-of-bed orders because they believed the patients were too sick. This team’s project aimed to include nursing in the conversation.
They hosted a project kick-off event to introduce it, welcome the new mobility champions and explain their roles, and familiarize clinical staff with the various disciplines. The team also gamified mobility via a monthly competition in which they recognized and awarded a prize to the person with the most patients mobilized.
The team’s initial goal aimed to improve the unit’s Healthy Work Environment Assessment Tool True Collaboration score by 0.2 points (the initial score was 4.58). They raised the collaboration score to 4.77; they also increased their aggregate score from 4.83 to 4.96. Ultimately, the team changed the unit’s perception of mobility—what once seemed intimidating to nursing staff is now normalized. Monthly, 7 to 13 patients are mobilized compared to 0 to 3 before the intervention. In fact, they ambulated three patients who were on ventilators, something the unit had never done before. The unit also saw a decrease in hospital-acquired infections and pressure injuries, which resulted in a total savings of $184,833.
In addition, the unit has prioritized staff professional development by encouraging the pursuit of advanced certifications, supporting higher education, and organizing support groups for new employees. Each staff member receives $600 each year and 8 hours of educational time to attend conferences, pursue certification, and take advantage of educational opportunities.
“We have strong teamwork and have respect for one another,” said Katherine Eduarte, MSN, RN, CCRN, PCCN, SCRN, CNRN, ENLS, who submitted the ICU Team’s All Pro Nursing Team application. “Nurses on this unit express a sense of belonging. One nurse commented how safe she feels on this unit compared to her former job in a different hospital where she was bullied and harassed daily. Another also expressed gratitude for working in such a positive and collaborative environment.”
By focusing on the health and well-being of their staff, emphasizing meaningful recognition, and by promoting growth within their scope of practice, nurses on this unit have created a culture of safety and empowerment.
FIRST RUNNER-UP
Jefferson Methodist Hospital B5 Nursing Team
After brainstorming for ideas to help make a difference for staff on their unit, the B5 Nursing Team selected a recognition program to acknowledge peers who help out, provide teamwork, and lend a hand. Jefferson Methodist’s existing electronic recognition wasn’t being used much and limited knowledge of the recognition to the staff member and their manager. The unit’s desire for more specific and tangible acknowledgement that also provided meaning for staff resulted in Commend-a-Friend.
Staff members complete and submit cards (in an anonymous drop box) to nominate peers for recognition. Those cards are then read at daily huddles and certificates issued to each nominee. The person receiving the most nominations receives a gift card.
After about 5 months, the program has achieved great success by creating a work culture that feels like family. It has helped to combat the perception that only mistakes are called out, which was reflected in the unit’s NDNQI RN Satisfaction survey. Commend-a-Friend has lifted staff morale by instilling a sense happiness and comradery. A post-intervention survey showed a 50% increase in satisfaction, including a sense of working in a positive and rewarding environment.
SECOND RUNNER-UP
Boston Children’s Hospital CICU Clinical Practice Mentor Team
The cardiac intensive care unit at Boston Children’s Hospital created the clinical practice mentor (CPM) role as an innovative approach to using expert nurses to support and guide nurses new to the CICU. The program’s mission is to provide support and mentorship to novice nurses at the bedside, advance critical thinking skills, model effective communication techniques, and support complicated hands-on ICU tasks.
The initial positive feedback to the trial program and support from nursing leadership led to permanent status of the role in the CICU. Feedback included the following results:
- 100% of CPMs and 72% of mentees agree/strongly agree that the role has helped them feel more engaged as a CICU nurse.
- 92% of CPMs and 84% of mentees believe that the role has contributed to a healthier work environment.
- 92% of mentees believe the CPM role has helped build confidence in communicating and escalating concerns with the interdisciplinary team.
- 93% of CPMs feel that the role has helped them advance their leadership practice.
According to the All Pro Nursing Team submission form, “CPM” has become a verb on the unit. For example, someone might say, “I’m admitting a patient from the cath lab. Can you CPM me on the cath results so I know what to expect and how to take care of him?”
THIRD RUNNER-UP
Methodist Mansfield Medical Center Women’s and Children’s Services
In response to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, the leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality, Texas hospitals (through the Texas AIM Collaborative and in alignment with The Joint Commission Perinatal Measures) created and applied evidence-based safety bundles to mitigate severe maternal morbidity (SSM). Methodist Mansfield Medical Center created a 5-phase bundle approach to help reduce SMM from 25% to 18.75% for patients with preeclampsia.
The bundle encompasses readiness (including a maternal early warning system and rapid access to fast-acting first line hypertension medications), recognition (including accurate BP monitoring and patient assessment for preeclampsia), response (including prompt administration of first line medications for those confirmed with severe range BP), reporting (including daily unit huddles to identify and promote awareness of high-risk patients and post-event debriefs), and respectful and supportive care (including family-centered care and critical incident stress management for staff).
Implementation of this bundle resulted in reducing SMM from 25% to 3%. Sustained success of this approach requires integrating it into routine care and continuously analyzing the process and outcomes.
Honorable Mention
Baptist Health BHSF Clinical Learning South
To address the challenges faced by clinical nurse educators (CNEs), this unit developed a CNE Bootcamp, which prioritizes growth, confidence, and personal wellness. The two 8-hour sessions feature four interactive breakout classes. Course topics include The Culture of Learning, Assessment & Goal Setting, Establishing Long-Term Goals, and Personal Wellness. Participants developed a SWOT analysis, set SMART goals, learned effective stress-management techniques, and practiced at-work chair exercises. The inaugural bootcamp attracted 84 participants from 12 Baptist Health entities. A comparative analysis of pre- and post-surveys demonstrated significant improvements in confidence, effectiveness, and overall job satisfaction among attendees. Feedback underscored the transformative impact of the program. One attendee said, “This motivates me today as I was going through a slump and feeling as if the role wasn’t for me. What I needed to keep pushing through the adversity.” The initiative’s success led to an annual CNE Bootcamp, ensuring sustained support and engagement for our educators.
Honorable Mention
Boston Children’s Hospital Newborn Circumcision Clinic
Along-standing health gap limits options for newborn circumcision after hospital discharge. Unless an infant had a circumcision performed in the immediate newborn period prior to hospital discharge, the only option in many settings is scheduling the procedure at age 1 year or older in an operating room under general anesthesia. The Advanced Practice Clinician (APC)-led Newborn Circumcision Clinic (NCC), with the support of urology surgical physician colleagues, developed a novel, holistic, family-centered ambulatory care model to mitigate these challenges. This innovative, relationship focused model is cost effective and efficient. It also has high levels of family satisfaction and tailors care to the needs of the community by shifting procedural care from an operating room model to an ambulatory procedure model. It allows APCs and nurses to practice to the full extent of their education and expertise, recognizing the powerful connections that nurses have in improving health care access, controlling costs, and reducing health inequity.
Honorable Mention
HMH JFK University Medical Center House Coverage Team
The house coverage advanced practice provider team includes advanced practice nurses, a physician assistant, and a project assistant. Their unit-based APN model provides nursing units with a dedicated NP 12 hours a day, 5 days a week with cross coverage on nights, weekends, and holidays. The APN serves as a resource to help identify acute or escalating clinical situations, provide on-the-spot evaluation, and immediate medical attention. This initiative resulted in decreases in rapid responses (54.16% reduction), code calls (58.33% reduction), and critical care transfers (38.23% reduction). A 2023 to 2024 data review saw a decrease in overall length of stay on designated units and improved case mix index numbers. These data highlight the impact of APNs in recognizing patient issues early and providing aggressive and timely treatment. The APNs provide real-time teachable moments to new nursing staff and provide a bridge for nurses, interdisciplinary team members, physicians, and patients/families.
Honorable Mention
Northside Hospital Gwinnett 4 South Team
To improve patient experience scores related to communication with nurses from 61.9% to 75%, the 4 South Team implemented various strategies, all focused on active listening. For example, the team welcomes new patients to the unit, the nurse updates the communication board with necessary information and the plan of care, and the nurse leader completes leader visits and provides expectations. Unit leadership also introduced “commit to sit.” Nurses received education on this approach as well as meaningful recognition for its use. Other strategies included service recovery efforts, staff involvement, and always for you (staff videos about active listening stories). Throughout the measured period, nurse communication scores remained above the 75% target. The team remains committed to monitoring the communication scores and analyzing survey results to identify areas for improvement.
American Nurse Journal. 2025; 20(4). Doi: 10.51256/ANJ042520
