ANCC Announces Recipients of the 2024 Magnet Nurse of the Year® Awards
MEDIA CONTACTS: Newsroom@ana.org
(October 31, 2024, SILVER SPRING, MD) — Today the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) announced the recipients of the 2024 Magnet Nurse of the Year® Awards during the 2024 co-located ANCC National Magnet Conference® and ANCC Pathway to Excellence Conference® in New Orleans.
The Magnet Nurse of the Year® awards recognize the outstanding contributions of clinical nurses in each of the five Magnet® Model components: Transformational Leadership; Structural Empowerment; Exemplary Professional Practice; New Knowledge, Innovations, and Improvements; and Empirical Outcomes.
Congratulations to the 2024 winners:
Transformational Leadership: Anita Rich, DNP, RN, CHFN, CDCES, CGNC
Dr. Anita Rich is the Heart Failure Coordinator & Diabetes Care and Education Specialist at Emory Johns Creek Hospital. She has had a significant and sustained impact on nursing in her own hospital and in developing countries. Dr. Rich played a pivotal role in establishing the hospital’s inpatient and outpatient heart failure (HF) services, including the development of an electronic dashboard to track the adoption of guideline-directed medication therapy (GDMT). Her leadership in increasing GDMT initiation contributed to a reduction in 30-day HF readmission rates, from 23.3% to 13.1% in just 18 months. Dr. Rich’s impact extends beyond her community through her nonprofit, Nurses Heart to Heart, which empowers nurses in war-torn and developing regions of the world. She has traveled to all Mongolian provinces to train and provide equipment for nurses, midwives, and health care workers in administering life-saving care. In Iraq she helped establish the Nursing and Midwifery Development Centre and has supported scholarships for women in Iraqi refugee camps to attend nursing school. Recently, she earned board certification as a Global Nurse Consultant through the International Council of Nurses (ICN), further affirming her commitment to advancing nursing practice on a global scale. The Transformational Leadership award is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente.
Structural Empowerment: Katrina Brown, MSN, RN, CEN, SANE
Katrina Brown is a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) and clinical nurse in the Emergency Department at Vanderbilt University Hospital. She has dedicated her career to transforming care for victims of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. As one of the first SANEs at Vanderbilt, Katrina led the establishment of a highly respected SANE Program, empowering clinical nurses to improve access to and quality of care for vulnerable populations in the community. Her efforts to uphold professional standards have shaped SANE training at Vanderbilt and across the broader community. Through her patient-centered approach, Katrina secured a Department of Justice grant to expand the program in certain regions of Tennessee. She is now working to launch Tennessee's first comprehensive Forensic Nurse Examiner program at Vanderbilt to improve patient outcomes. Recognized as a trusted forensic nursing expert, she is also collaborating with other agencies to develop local protocols for response to patients seeking care following sexual assault, intimate partner violence/strangulation, and human trafficking. Katrina's influence spans across disciplines, law enforcement, and communities to significantly change the care that victims of sexual assault receive at Vanderbilt and throughout the state.
Exemplary Professional Practice: Diane Scheb, MSN, RN, AP-PMN, PMGT-BC
Diane Scheb is the Advanced Specialty Program Coordinator for the interprofessional Acute Pain Service (APS) at Sarasota Memorial Health Care System in Sarasota Florida. She has 28 years of experience in pain management, earning the reputation of being a leader in advancing innovation, professional risk-taking, and excellence in leadership at her organization. One of her most notable achievements was petitioning the Florida Board of Nursing to update the registered nurse (RN) scope of practice, allowing RNs to administer ketamine infusions to qualifying patients. During the height of the opioid crisis, Diane recognized the potential for low-dose ketamine to benefit opioid-tolerant patients by providing a safe and effective alternative for managing pain. This innovative approach has reduced opioid intake and improved care for patients suffering from neuropathic pain. To date, 38 patients have benefitted from this treatment, and her efforts have helped expand nursing practice in Florida. Diane’s unwavering compassion and dedication to improving care for patients with complex, multifaceted pain conditions demonstrates her outstanding commitment to the profession. The Exemplary Professional Practice award is sponsored by EBSCO.
New Knowledge, Innovations and Improvements: Kayla Witthoeft, BSN, RN, ONC, CPAN
Kayla Witthoeft is a post-anesthesia and critical care nurse at Prisma Health Oconee Memorial in Seneca, South Carolina. An extraordinary clinical nurse, nursing educator, and published researcher, Kayla’s research accomplishments are impressive. Her dedication to post- anesthesia care has profoundly advanced surgical outcomes, particularly in vulnerable pediatric patients. Her innovative approach to addressing emergence delirium in pediatric patients led to a 42% reduction in pediatric anesthesia emergence delirium scores through a collaborative and interdisciplinary project, “Decreasing Emergence Delirium in Pediatric Surgical Patients with IV Dexmedetomidine.” Additionally, her leadership in the collaborative project “Preoperative warming: How and Why to Prevent Hypothermia in Peri-Anesthesia” reduced postoperative hypothermia by 50% and shivering rates by 300%. Recently, Kayla was invited to present her findings at the International Collaboration of Peri-Anesthesia Nurse Conference in Amsterdam, marking her as a global thought leader in pediatric surgical care improvement. The New Knowledge, Innovations and Improvements award is sponsored by Purdue University Global.
Empirical Outcomes: Leah Rawdon, DNP, APRN-CPNP
Dr. Leah Rawdon is the Lead Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at Akron Children’s Hospital. She has served in roles from Nurse Tech to Float Pool Nurse to her current role as Lead Nurse Practitioner for the organization’s Hospital Medicine Group. She also spearheaded the development of the Hospital Medicine Advanced Practice Provider (APP) program, leading a team of over 16 nurse practitioners across two campuses. Under her leadership, APPs have expanded their scope of practice, including admitting and discharging patients, maximizing their impact. Her impressive contributions include creating a Short Stay Unit to improve hospital throughput, which successfully reduced both costs and length of stay for hospital medical patients. Dr. Rawdon’s innovative work on the adolescent idiopathic scoliosis pathway led to a significant reduction in patient length of stay, benefiting both patients and the hospital. Her dedication to advancing nursing practice through her numerous national and local presentations, involvement in research, and commitment to quality improvement, is extraordinary. Dr. Rawdon’s forward-thinking approach and focus on high-quality care continually empower her APP team to strive for excellence. The Empirical Outcomes award is sponsored by Dell and Intel.
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About the American Nurses Credentialing Center
The mission of the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association, is to promote excellence in nursing and health care globally through credentialing programs. ANCC's internationally renowned credentialing programs certify and recognize individual nurses in specialty practice areas. ANCC recognizes health care organizations that promote nursing excellence and quality patient outcomes while providing safe, positive work environments. In addition, ANCC accredits health care organizations that provide and approve continuing nursing education and accredits transition-to-practice programs that prepare nurses for new practice roles. For more information about ANCC, visit us at nursingworld.org/ANCC and follow us on X. ANCC is the only nurse credentialing organization to successfully achieve ISO 9001: 2015 certification.
About the Magnet Recognition Program®
The Magnet Recognition Program® recognizes health care organizations for quality patient care, nursing excellence, and innovations in professional nursing practice. Consumers rely on the Magnet® designation as the ultimate credential for high-quality nursing. Developed by ANCC, Magnet is the leading source of successful nursing practices and strategies worldwide.