Nominations for Excellence in Nursing awards are open! They close December 15, 2024!

It's time to prepare for one of our favorite events!

Take this opportunity to recognize an incredible nurse in your work setting!  Click the link: Excellence in Nursing Awards Details.

Below the flyer, please see a comprehensive list of which specialty fits best into which category.

• Academic Nurse Educator/Researcher: This category recognizes a nurse involved in education who works in academia in educating nurses at Associate, Bachelor, Masters or Doctorate levels. This category also  recognizes a nurse involved in research who works to advance evidence-based practice defined as: “the integration of best research, clinical expertise, and patient values in making decisions about the care of individualized patients.”
• Advanced Practice Nursing: This category recognizes an Advance Practice Registered Nurse working in any practice setting, including nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, nurse anesthetists, and nurse midwives.
• Ambulatory Care Nursing: This category recognizes a nurse working in the ambulatory care setting and includes nurses in care coordination, dialysis, clinic-based nursing, and telehealth nursing (based on Association Ambulatory Care Nursing defining characteristics).
• Emergency and Critical Care Nursing: This category recognizes a nurse working as an emergency nurse, flight nurse, urgent care nurse, intensive care unit, progressive care unit (telemetry), perianesthesia care unit (PACU), or pediatric intensive care unit.
• Front line/Administrative Nursing: This category recognizes a front line or administrative nursing leader and includes nursing supervisors, clinical leaders, informal/project leaders (infection control, onboarding), or functional leaders (leaders without direct reports). (*Please note: For 2025, a large and small hospital winner to be determined for this category.)
• Gerontology Nursing: This category recognizes a nurse working in gerontologic care or long-term care and includes nurses working in skilled nursing, assisted living, intermediate care, or dementia/memory care.
• Hospice-Palliative Care: This category recognizes a nurse working in hospice-palliative care, and includes nurses working in hospice, skilled nursing/rehabilitation, assisted living, intermediate care, palliative care, or dementia/memory care.
• Maternal-Child Nursing: This category recognizes a nurse working in prenatal care, high-risk maternal-fetal care, intrapartum care, postpartum care, newborn special care, or newborn intensive care.
• Medical Surgical Nursing: This category recognizes a nurse working in acute care settings and includes nurses working on in-patient units, including medical-surgical units, post-operative care units, wound care nursing, same day surgery or operating suites.
• Professional Nurse Educator: This category recognizes a nurse involved in education who works to advance the knowledge, skills and professionalism required for patient-centered care. This includes active nursing education activities in environments such as: nursing professional development (organizational settings) and nurse education.
• Nursing Informatics: This category recognizes a nurse involved in nursing informatics who works to “integrate nursing science with multiple information and analytical sciences to identify, define, manage and communicate data, information, knowledge and wisdom in nursing practice” (ANA – https://www.himss.org/resources/what-nursing-informatics).
• Nurse Innovator/Entrepreneur and Quality Improvement This category recognizes a nurse who is an innovator/entrepreneur (product developer or healthcare delivery), or quality improvement nurse.
• Pediatric & School Nursing: This category recognizes nurses working with the pediatric population (primary care, in-patient pediatric setting, camp) or in a school setting.
• Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing: This category recognizes a psychiatric and mental health or substance use disorder, nurse working on in-patient units, or in community-based care.
• Community/Public Health Nursing: This category recognizes nurses working in the community setting including home care, correctional nursing, occupational health, a public health department, or parish nursing.
• Senior Nurse Leader: This category recognizes a senior nursing leader and includes nursing directors, vice presidents, or chief nursing officers. (Please note: For 2025, a large and small hospital winner to be determined for this category.*)

*A small hospital is defined as hospital with 199 or less beds and a large hospital is defined as a hospital with 200 or more beds.