Award recipients recognized at NTI.

Each year, the highest of AACN's Circle of Excellence awards honor individuals who have made a difference in acute and critical care nursing. Among these are the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career and the GE Healthcare-AACN Pioneering Spirit Award, presented to individuals considered to be Visionary Leaders. New this year is the Circle of Excellence Flame Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions at the regional and national levels. Recipients of the awards are selected by unanimous vote of the AACN Board of Directors.

This year's recipient of the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career is Dennis S. O'Leary, MD. GE Healthcare-AACN Pioneering Spirit Award recipients are Patricia R. Ebright, DNS, RN, Elaine Larson, RN, PhD, FAAN, CIC, and Therese S. Richmond, PhD, CRNP, FAAN. The first Circle of Excellence Flame Award recipients are Thomas S. Ahrens, RN, DNS, FAAN, Suzanne M. Burns, RN, MSN, RRT, ACNP, CCRN, FAAN, FCCM, FAANP, and Karen K. Carlson, RN, MN, CCNS.

2008 Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career This award recognizes individuals who are completing or have completed an extraordinary and distinguished professional career. The recipients show consistent and exceptional contributions throughout a career that has enhanced the care of acutely and critically ill patients and their families by furthering the mission and vision of AACN. The award is named in honor of its first recipient, AACN past President Marguerite R. Kinney.

Dennis S. O'Leary, MD

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Modern Healthcare tapped him as one of the 25 most influential leaders in healthcare during the past quarter century. In many circles, Dennis O'Leary and The Joint Commission continue to be synonymous even since O'Leary retired after 20 years as president. The Joint Commission didn't merely change its name because of his transformational leadership. It embraced healthcare-providing organizations in the U.S. and abroad, shifting its entire focus to address how organizations actually perform when they provide patient care. This set the stage for introducing care-related outcomes and process measures, among them cutting-edge standards for patient safety, pain management, use of patient restraints and emergency preparedness.

A nurse serving on The Joint Commission Board describes O'Leary as "steadfast in his support and recognition of nursing's critical role in quality and patient safety." He convened a roundtable, elevated the nurse staffing crisis in the public policy arena and endorsed efforts to raise nursing's voice in every aspect of The Joint Commission's work by supporting the creation of a Nursing Advisory Council within The Joint Commission, which explains his public admiration for AACN. At a Washington, D.C., news conference in 2005, it was O'Leary who made a compelling case for why healthcare urgently needed AACN's healthy work environment standards.

O'Leary is president emeritus of The Joint Commission. He earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. After two years of internal medicine training at the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis, he completed his residency and hematology fellowship at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. He is board certified in internal medicine and hematology.

2008 GE Healthcare-AACN Pioneering Spirit Award This award recognizes significant contributions that influence acute and critical care nursing. Successful applicants demonstrate a far-reaching contribution that exemplifies a pioneering spirit and influences the direction of acute and critical care nursing. The contribution must be clearly defined and have a regional or national effect. It must be timely and address or resolve a significant issue facing acute and critical care nursing, and must be related to the mission, vision and values of AACN. Following are this year's recipients.

Patricia R. Ebright, DNS, RN

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What might a nurse do after 28 years as a hospital staff nurse, nurse manager and clinical nurse specialist? Here's one possibility: Earn your doctorate and become a pioneering researcher in two critical and timely areas of inquiry that directly influence the work of acute and critical care nurses. This is what Patricia Ebright did.

Her trailblazing studies examine two critical issues in healthcare today: (1) how healthcare providers make decisions in the context of actual care situations and (2) how work complexity influences patient safety and quality care. Her current research funded by the National Patient Safety Foundation has uncovered a decision-making approach called "stacking" used by nurses to cope with variable and complex workloads. Stacking is the continuous prioritizing and reprioritizing of care delivery goals and timelines, adjusting outcomes and even abandoning some goals without adverse consequences. Stacking is invisible and dynamic. It has not been reported in the literature and nursing schools do not teach it. So, it is experienced nurses who discover and use stacking as a failure-prevention strategy when they come upon the many flawed operational systems in hospitals today.

Ebright holds bachelor's and master's degrees in nursing from the University of Cincinnati and a doctorate from Indiana University. She was a member of the first Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship class sponsored by the National Patient Safety Foundation and completed a Department of Veterans Affairs postdoctoral fellowship in informatics.

Elaine Larson, RN, PhD, FAAN, CIC

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Many people know Elaine Larson as "the handwashing lady." Her seminal research in handwashing and infection control started in the 1970s and continues to this day. With it she anticipated by several decades today's demand for evidence-based practice in this fundamental aspect of nursing practice. To recognize her contributions in the field of infection prevention, in 2002 the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology endowed the Elaine Larson Lectureship. A year later the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research honored her with the first Pathfinder Award for her contributions to clinical research and national policy.

Larson is internationally regarded as the pre-eminent expert in scientific evidence about handwashing and an authority on other aspects of epidemiology and infection control. She has served on the President's Committee for Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses and the National Institutes of Health Study Section on HIV Infection.

In addition to being editor of the American Journal of Infection Control since 1994 and serving on nine journal editorial boards, she has published more than 200 journal articles, four books and numerous book chapters. She has consulted for the World Health Organization and in countries on every continent except Antarctica.

Larson is currently associate dean for research and professor of pharmaceutical and therapeutic research at Columbia University School of Nursing. She holds a dual appointment as professor of epidemiology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and is director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Antimicrobial Resistance. Larson holds a bachelor's in nursing, master's degrees in nursing and microbiology and a doctorate in epidemiology from the University of Washington. She was a Robert Wood Johnson clinical nurse scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.

Therese S. Richmond, PhD, CRNP, FAAN

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In 1997, Terry Richmond started to carve out a unique and pioneering area of interdisciplinary knowledge in firearm injuries and violence. She was already nationally recognized as a neuroscience and trauma clinical nurse specialist, speaker and author. Today she is considered the leading nurse researcher in firearm injuries and violence and recognized as a mentor across professional disciplines. Most recently, she has put forward a research agenda to reduce firearm violence. All of this brings her to interdisciplinary national policy deliberations where she is usually the only nurse at the table.

At the intersection of her work in trauma care and violence, Richmond has also begun to study the outcomes of serious traumatic injury among critically ill older adults. One of the world's foremost experts in gerontological nursing research credits her with carving a significant niche in geriatric critical care, something unheard-of five years ago.

AACN and AACN Certification Corporation have benefited from Richmond's active volunteerism and commitment to professional organizations. She served on both boards of directors and numerous task forces and committees. She served on the Society of Critical Care Medicine Project IMPACT advisory board and received the SCCM Presidential Citation.

Richmond is currently associate professor of nursing with tenure at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing with a secondary appointment as associate professor of nursing in surgery at the university's School of Medicine. She holds a diploma in nursing from Thomas Jefferson University School of Nursing and a bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Delaware along with a master's degree from The Catholic University of America and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. 2008 AACN Flame of Excellence Award This new award honors Circle of Excellence criteria at the highest level of sustained regional and national excellence. Award recipients will be chosen from among members of the newly formed Circle of Excellence Society. It is envisioned that the society will permanently connect award recipients to one another and to AACN, providing a network of experts who will be a source of continuing ideas for innovation and excellence in nursing practice. Following are the first award recipients.

Thomas S. Ahrens, RN, DNS, FAAN

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Tom Ahrens is a research scientist at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He has published extensively, including five books and more than 100 papers. He has lectured both nationally and internationally on critical care topics. Ahrens is actively involved in technology application, particularly in terms of hemodynamic monitoring and capnography. He has been widely published in the application of technology to clinical practice. He organized a multicenter study that illustrated how end tidal CO2 could accurately predict survival following cardiac arrest.

His book, "Hemodynamic Waveform Analysis," is considered by many to be the finest clinical guide on the topic. His book, "Essentials of Oxygenation," was an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year. He was awarded the 1999 Presidential Citation by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and in 2004 was inducted into the American Academy of Nursing.

Ahrens is a strong advocate for families of hospitalized patients. He has published a research paper that demonstrated how improving communication with highrisk patient families can improve both outcomes and cost control. He has helped design communication programs to aid clinicians and published how nursing can lead the way to better matching patient and family wishes with the plan of care. For his work with families of hospitalized patients, in 2006 the American Academy of Nursing selected him as one of its first Edge Runners. Edge Runners are individuals who are developing innovative solutions that eventually become mainstream.

Suzanne M. Burns, RN, MSN, RRT, ACNP, CCRN, FAAN, FCCM, FAANP

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For decades, Suzi Burns has been a prominent voice in how to maximize clinical outcomes in mechanically ventilated patients. She studies, she publishes, she speaks, she teaches and she gives direct care, because she has made it her personal campaign to educate nurses about the complexities of mechanical ventilation.

Because of her background as a nurse and respiratory therapist she brings a unique interdisciplinary perspective to the clinical uses of technology. The Burns Wean Assessment Program was one of the first assessments of weaning potential to include non-pulmonary factors. As a result, it surpasses more narrowly focused tools as a predictive model and is one of the most commonly used weaning assessment tools in ventilator management. Her research has also confirmed improved patient outcomes and cost savings when advanced practice nurses manage ventilator care.

Burns' development of a strong nursing research program at the University of Virginia Health Center may be an even greater contribution to acute and critical care nursing. National experts credit her influence in the Medical ICU with creating a climate of clinical inquiry among bedside clinicians who continuously question the efficacy of their nursing practice and turn to research as a way of answering their own clinical questions. Her approach to mentoring bedside clinicians in conducting research has been extended to the entire medical center and is shared as a speaker and consultant across the United States.

Karen K. Carlson, RN, MN, CCNS

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Our dear colleague and friend, Karen Carlson, passed away last December. Her flame continues to burn ever so brightly in the thousands of individuals she touched during her short life.

Carlson always recognized that staff nurses are the people she needed to influence, because they are the front line of nursing. She did so as a consummate role model, coach, mentor, teacher, author and editor. Her relentless focus and dedication to excellence made the books she produced among the most influential in acute and critical care nursing across the United States and internationally. These include the "AACN Procedure Manual for Critical Care" and the new "AACN Advanced Critical Care Nursing," for which she reviewed page proofs just days before her passing.

Carlson instinctively knew how to make each member of the team feel valued, even while she mentored them as writers and editors. Through "Orientation to the Care of the Acute and Critically Ill Patient," which she edited, she influenced the development of thousands of novice nurses and set the stage for the eventual development of AACN's e-learning programs.

Carlson was a master teacher. As her natural talent developed she became nationally recognized as a dynamic, authentic educator who understood the science and how to apply it at the bedside. As a role model, she inspired her students and colleagues to be "as good as Karen" in everything they did. She multiplied her reach by the thousands when she established the Carlson Consulting Group to carry out her passion, intellectual rigor and commitment to quality.

A graduate of St. Luke's Methodist School of Nursing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Carlson received her bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota and master's degree from the University of Washington. She served on the national boards of directors of AACN and AACN Certification Corporation.

Carlson's award will be accepted by her husband, Jim.