Baylor Nurses’ Recent Achievements
Baylor nurses influence nursing practice around the community, state, region, nation and world through presentations, publications, nursing research and leadership roles in professional organizations. They’re also nationally recognized for innovation and excellence in practice.
Awards
For example, Baylor Health Care System was one of only five institutions nationally to be recognized by the American Nurses Association in 2007 with a Best Practices in Seasonal Influenza Immunization award.
Each year, many of our nurses are named to the Texas Nurses Association’s Great 100 Nurses list for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In 2008, 20 of the Great 100 Nurses were from Baylor hospitals.
Other recent awards our nurses have won include:
American Association of Critical Care Nurse (AACN) Circle of Excellence Awards (Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas)
- Sharon Gunn, MA, RN, CCRN, and Caton Cadigan, BSN, RN, CCRN, both of 4 Truett ICU, won the Excellence in Clinical Practice Award recognizing acute and/or critical care nurses who embody, exemplify and excel in the clinical skills and principles that are required in their practice.
- Beverly Benskin, MS, RN, NCC, LPC, CY, of the Neonatal ICU, was honored with the Excellence in Caring Practices Award that recognizes nurses whose caring practices embody AACN’s vision of creating a health care system driven by the needs of patients and their families.
- John Dixon, MSN, RN, CAN, BC, of the Center for Nursing Education and Research, was awarded the Mentoring Award recognizing people who develop and enhance another’s intellectual and technical skills, modeling a way of life and professional achievement.
Clinical Practice Model Resource Center Award (Baylor Medical Center at Garland)
- Melinda Gregory, RN, received the Helen Henry Award, which recognizes compassionate care at bedside, commitment to patient satisfaction and ongoing collaboration with her peers.
NurseWeek Nursing Excellence Award
- Baylor Regional Medical Center at Grapevine - Christine Corene Roberts, RN, a nurse on the Progressive Care Unit, was awarded a South Central Region Nursing Excellence Award for her mentoring work in 2007.
- Baylor Medical Center at Garland - Ruth Rekha, NP, a nurse educator for five units at Baylor Garland, was awarded the South Central Region Nursing Excellence Award in 2008 for education.
Quality awards given to Baylor hospitals:
In 2008, Baylor Health Care System won the National Quality Forum’s National Quality Healthcare Award. The award, given out for 15 years, recognizes health care organizations that are role models for achieving meaningful, sustainable quality improvement in health care. It’s presented in partnership with Modern Healthcare magazine and Studer Group, a health care consulting firm. “NQF’s panel of judges was deeply impressed by Baylor Health Care System’s focus on quality measurement and improvement and their commitment to building a culture of transparency,” said Janet Corrigan, National Quality Forum president and CEO. “In a strong pool of applicants, Baylor stood out as an exemplary model for raising the bar of health system performance to achieve higher levels of quality, safety and efficiency for the patients they serve.”
In 2007, we earned the Leapfrog Group’s first Patient-Centered Care Award. The award goes to a hospital or health system whose board has most successfully driven the creation of a true partnership between patients and their caregivers. Baylor was recognized for excellence in areas such as how informed the board is on quality, safety and patient experience within the organization; how well patient advocates are integrated into the organization; and having a policy for disclosing medical errors to patients and their families.
The HealthWatch 2006 Report ranked Baylor highest among all hospital systems in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for “Best Overall Quality of Care.” The report was conducted by Rincon and Associates, a Dallas-based market research company. In addition, the report found nearly twice as many consumers regard Baylor hospitals as having the best quality of cancer treatment compared to the second-ranked system. For quality heart treatment, we outscored our closest competitor by 7 percentage points.
Health Grades gave its Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence to our hospitals in Dallas and Irving. The Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Award went to Baylor facilities in Dallas, Fort Worth, Grapevine, Irving, Plano and Waxahachie. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas named three of our hospitals as Blue Distinction CentersSM for Cardiac Care and named Baylor Dallas a Blue Distinction CenterSM for Bariatric Surgery. We also received the American Nurses Association Recognition for Best Practices in Seasonal Influenza Immunization.
Nurses Published in Journals
Some of the recent publications by Baylor nurses include:
- Bradley, D. and Dixon, J.F. (2007). ASPIRE. Advance for Nurses. 5(5), 12-14.
- Dixon, J.F. and Bradley, D.A. (2007). Implementing a Synergistic Professional Nursing Practice Model. In M.A.Q. Curley (Ed.) Synergy: The Unique Relationship Between Nurses and Patients. Indianapolis, IN: Sigma Theta Tau International.
- Dixon, J.F. (2007). Healthy work environments standards: From paper to practice. AACN News. 24(2), 4.
- Dixon, J.F. (2007). Response to diversity. In M.G. McKinley (Ed.) Acute and Critical Care Clinical Nurse Specialists: Synergy for Best Practices. Saunders Elsevier.
- Leeper B. (2007). Chapter 9: Cardiovascular System. Chapter 19: Advanced Cardiovascular Concepts. In M. Chulay and S.M. Burns SM (Eds.) AACN Essentials of Progressive Care Nursing. New York: McGraw Hill.
- Leeper B. (2007). Patients having repeat coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North America. 19(4), 461-6.
- Leeper B. (2007). Saving lives with continuous ST-segment monitoring. American Nurse Today. 2(2), 12-14.