Hauppuage, NY - May 24, 2017 - Nurse leaders from Long Island’s hospitals and nursing education programs gathered Wednesday, May 17, 2017 at the Woodbury Country Club to bestow recognition upon their nurse peers at the Nurse of Excellence Award Ceremony hosted by the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council (NSHC). One nurse from each of the Hospital Council’s member hospitals was nominated for the award, which recognizes outstanding leadership and clinical practice. Deans of area nursing schools also submitted nominations recognizing nursing excellence in education and clinical practice.
Kings Park resident Lisa Koshansky RN, Nurse Manager Critical Care at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center, rose above a field of 27 nominees. Those nominees were selected from a field of about 500 nurses at hospitals and teaching institutions from across Long Island.
Koshansky says her lifelong motto and inspiration as a nurse has been “do no harm.” Her drive for perfection has led the hospital’s critical care unit to remain free of central line-associated blood stream infection incidents since 2011 and without a ventilator-associated pneumonia case since 2009. Her performance improvement efforts and leadership in this area have resulted in the hospital being recognized as a state leader in performance measures in sepsis identification and management. Additionally, she has led her colleagues in the intensive care unit and cardiac care unit in restraint reduction, achieving a restraint reduction of 75.7 percent to 4.75 percent in the ICU in 2016 and a restraint reduction from 38.3 percent to 2.8 percent in the CCU. Surprised to be chosen from among a field of so many outstanding candidates, Koshansky said, “I love the profession of nursing. I am humbled to be in the company of such great nurses. When you listen to what other nominees have accomplished, you tend to look at what you are not instead of what you are.”
“The most important person for patients in a hospital is the nurse,” said Kenneth Roberts, chair of the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council and CEO of John T. Mather Memorial Hospitals. “Nurse are there 24/7 taking care of patients.”
The Hospital Council’s annual salute to nurses is fashioned after the New York State Legislature’s Nurse of Distinction Program that ended in 1995. NSHC is one of the few hospital associations in the state to continue this program voluntarily. It is now in its 22nd year. The NSHC represents Long Island’s not-for-profit and public hospitals.
For more information about this program and a full listing of nominees, visit www.nshc.org.