The 2024 Recipients of the HealthImpact DAISY Nurse Leader Award in Policy
HealthImpact and The DAISY Foundation™ have announced the recipients of their DAISY Nurse Leader Awards in Policy. This award honors nurses whose work in policy advances compassionate care that improves the health of populations. Five individuals and one team were selected by a national panel of healthcare policy experts.
Said Deb Zimmermann, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, CEO of The DAISY Foundation, “It is a delight to recognize nurses who are making a profound difference in healthcare policy. These nurses are addressing current challenges impacting our nation’s health, wellness, and safety. Their efforts will have an impact on generations. DAISY is honored to partner with HealthImpact in honoring these outstanding clinicians.”
Garrett Chan, PhD, APRN, FAAN, President and CEO of HealthImpact added “This group of Honorees have shown how nurses in policy, particularly in the federal and state governments and K-12 schools, advanced compassionate care for not only populations currently but also for generations to come. We celebrate these incredible nurses and thank them for their tireless and impactful work.”
INDIVIDUAL RECIPIENTS
Meghan Lorbiecki, MSN, RN, CNL, PMH-BC, Clinical Nurse Leader for Acute Mental Health, Zablocki VA Health Care System. Ms. Lorbiecki’s leadership and vision led to a modernized approach that identified compassionate policy and innovative teaching methods for an alcohol withdrawal protocol used as best practice standard of care across 173 VA Medical Centers, seeing over 50,000 alcohol withdrawal patients per year, leading to a more compassionate proactive treatment and prevention of life-threatening decompensation.
Toby Bressler, PhD, RN, CCN, FAAN, Senior Director of Nursing for Oncology and Quality, Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West Hospitals. Dr. Bressler’s leadership created a religiously-sensitive compassionate policy for use of monoclonal antibodies. She instituted policies across her organization that affected over 4,000 nurses and ensured patient educational materials were translated into Yiddish for the patient population.
Angela Appiah, PhD, DNP, MPH, RN,COA, FAACM Associate Chief Nurse, Department of Veteran Affairs. Dr. Appiah’s leadership led to the implementation of a tailored program to address the unmet needs of the Senkatane Oncology Clinic in Lesotho, South Africa. The nurses she trained, in turn, trained the village health care workers to be cancer health care workers, which broadened the health care and treatment within and outside the clinic. Her program is a toolkit for other entities performing work globally in low-resource areas.
Elizabeth Duthie, PhD, RN, CPPS, FAAN, Director of Patient Safety and Assistant Professor, Montefiore Medical Center. Dr. Duthie’s leadership led to the recognition of a significant barrier for nurses in New York to provide timely compassionate care to their patients. Dr. Duthie responded to unintended consequences that emerged from a policy that prohibited standing orders within the New York state practice act. She worked tirelessly through stakeholder issues for 5 years to have standing orders reauthorized through new legislation to ensure delays in patient care are minimized.
Wilhelmina Manzano, MA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, Group Senior Vice President, Chief Nurse Executive and Chief Operating Officer for Perioperative Services, New York-Presbyterian. Ms. Manzano directly advanced compassionate care for patient populations and communities through her roles as Chief Nurse Executive and American Nursing Foundation President. She developed collaborative policy with the American Nurses Foundation that supported policy changes and programs to strengthen nurse advocacy and nurse mental health and well- being with local, national, and global impact. At NYP, she influenced nursing practice across 11 hospitals impacting over 12,000 nurses through development of a Nurse Residency Program and Nurse Leadership Academy.
TEAM AWARD RECIPIENT
Association of California Nurse Leaders Health Policy Committee, Accepting on behalf of the Committee: Susan Engle, DNP, RN, PHN. The ACNL Health Policy Committee recognized the importance of advocacy and policy education for California nurse leaders. They developed health policy and advocacy competencies, performed webinars and podcasts to over 800 participants. Among many bills they supported was AB 848 which enabled Medi-Cal medically diabetic patients obtain continuous glucose monitoring to help remove barriers to a mounting diabetic crisis across the state.
RECIPIENTS OF PRIOR YEARS
The 2020 Recipients of the Inaugural HealthImpact DAISY Nurse Leader Award in Policy
The 2023 Recipients of the Inaugural HealthImpact DAISY Nurse Leader Award in Policy
ABOUT THE DAISY FOUNDATION
The DAISY Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, by members of his family. Patrick died at the age of 33 in late 1999 from complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a little known but not uncommon auto-immune disease. (DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System.) The care Patrick and his family received from Nurses while he was ill inspired the creation of The DAISY Award® for Extraordinary Nurses, an evidenced-based means of providing Nurse recognition and thanking Nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and patient families.
In addition to the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses, the Foundation expresses gratitude to the nursing profession internationally in over 5,900 healthcare facilities and schools of nursing with recognition programs for nurses wherever they practice, in whatever role they serve, and throughout their careers- from nursing student through lifetime achievement, and through several lines of research grant and evidence-based practice projects funding. More information is available at http://DAISYfoundation.org.
ABOUT HEALTHIMPACT
HealthImpact is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to transforming nursing to advance the health of Californians. Founded in 2001 as the designated state nursing workforce center for California, HealthImpact has a strong and successful history in California and nationally in engaging diverse stakeholders addressing workforce issues, developing solutions, and implementing programs through collaborative effort. Working in partnership with leaders from academic institutions, health care providers that employ RNs, health care associations, funders, policy makers, and workforce development boards, the scope of work has included focused effort addressing the supply, demand, and capability of the current and future nursing workforce.