Nurses honored with prestigious awards

Mary Krugman and Tanya Tanner joined an elite group of nurses as they received the prestigious Nightingale Award for Excellence at the Colorado Nurses Foundation's annual awards event May 14.

The awards continue a 25-year tradition of recognizing excellence in professional nursing. The 2011 awards were designed to highlight nurses whose actions and outcomes exemplified the spirit of a citizen of the profession through either leadership, advocacy or innovation.

Krugman, director of professional resources at the University of Colorado Hospital, received the award in the category of "Leadership in Administrator, Educator, Researcher or Nontraditional Roles: Outstanding nurses who motivated others to work toward a common goal."

Krugman was a key leader in developing the University Health System Consortium/American Association of Colleges of Nursing Post-Baccalaureate Nurse Residency Program, now in 64 sites nationwide. She also served on the Collegiate Commission on Nursing Education, writing national residency program accreditation standards, resulting in the University of Colorado Hospital's program becoming the first in the nation to receive national accreditation, with the outcome of these initiatives having a positive impact on professional nurse entry into practice and retention across the country.

Tanner, a certified nurse midwife at Denver Health Medical Center and Medical Center of Aurora and a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado College of Nursing, won the award in the category of "Advocacy in Clinical Practice: Outstanding nurses who advanced a cause or a purpose."

Tanner has advocated for improved healthcare for women through her research endeavors. She is researching indicators of self-competency for normal birth with the objective of reducing C-section rates and also developing a "Normal Birth" position statement that will be presented at the 2011 International Confederation of Mid-Wives meeting in South Africa.

A total of 266 nurses from across the state were nominated in one of two practice categories: nurses in clinical practice and nurse administrators, educators, researchers, or those in nontraditional roles. Nominators were asked to describe how their nominee advanced the profession of nursing, improved quality and access to care, or positively impacted their community through leadership, advocacy or innovation. Some 43 Luminaries were selected by either the Area Higher Education Centers (AHEC) or the Regional Nightingale Committees and forwarded to the State Selection Committee, where six of the Luminary Award recipients, one from each category and one from each area of recognition, were selected to receive the traditional Nightingale Award.

Others with CU ties who were finalists for the awards were:

Jamie Nordhagen, charge nurse, Oncology Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, University of Colorado Hospital, in the "Leadership in Clinical Practice" category; Suzy Evans, orthopedic spine nurse/level IV staff nurse, The Children's Hospital in Denver, in the "Advocacy in Clinical Practice" category; Cameron Boyle, clinical nurse, Trauma Burn Unit, University of Colorado Hospital, in the "Innovation in Clinical Practice" category; Jenenne P. Nelson, professor of nursing at Beth-El College and Health Sciences and dean of the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Graduate School, in the "Leadership in Administrator, Educator, Researcher or Nontraditional Roles" category; and Teresa Sakraida, nurse scientist, University of Colorado College of Nursing, and Andrea Le Claire, program director, department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, The Children's Hospital, both in the "Innovation in Administrator, Educator, Researcher or Nontraditional Roles" category.

The Colorado Nurses Foundation (CNF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care and nursing practice in Colorado.