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2008 AACN Flame of Excellence Awards Bestowed
The new Flame of Excellence Awards honor healthcare professionals who meet Circle of Excellence criteria at the highest level of sustained regional and national excellence. Award recipients are chosen from among members of the new Circle of Excellence Society. 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 who were honored at NTI Tuesday.
Thomas S. Ahrens
Thomas S. Ahrens | |
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 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 an advocate for families of hospitalized patients. He has published a research paper that demonstrated how improving communication with the families of high-risk patients 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
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Suzanne M. Burns |
For decades, Suzi Burns has been a prominent voice in how to maximize clinical outcomes in mechanically ventilated patients.
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 intensive care unit 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.
Karen K. Carlson
Karen K. Carlson | |
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 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 Carson 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 was accepted by her husband, Jim. |
