UC Davis Health receives AMSN PRISM Award® for exemplary practice

The Orthopaedic/Trauma Unit at UC Davis Health has received the prestigious AMSN PRISM Award®, an honor recognizing exceptional nursing practice, leadership, and outcomes in hospital medical-surgical units.

This recognition marked UC Davis Health's eighth AMSN PRISM Award®, which is tied for the most earned by any institution. It’s also the most for any hospital west of the Mississippi River.

The award, which stands for “Premier Recognition In the Specialty of Med-Surg,” is the first of its kind honoring med-surg nursing units in the United States and internationally. It is co-sponsored by the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses (AMSN) and the Medical-Surgical Nursing Certification Board (MSNCB). The award is given to outstanding acute care/med-surg units or adult/pediatric units classified as med-surg.

Wes Foster, president of the MSNCB Board of Directors, presented the Orthopaedic/Trauma Unit with the AMSN PRISM Award plaque during a ceremony on May 27.

“This award is an honor and a great way to celebrate nursing excellence and our extremely talented and resilient team here on the Orthopaedic/Trauma Unit,” said Dorine Fowler, nurse manager. “Despite the challenges of navigating through a pandemic, our unit has continued to provide high quality evidence-based care and kept patients as our number one priority. I am proud and privileged to work with such an amazing group of nurses.”

Hoping to inspire nurses to strive for the highest levels of patient safety and quality, AMSN and MSNCB launched the award in October 2012. The award also reflects the compassion, commitment, and connection that characterize med-surg nurses.

Specifically, the award celebrates units that exhibit:

• Effective leadership
• Recruitment and retention of competent staff members
• Evidence-based practice
• Positive patient outcomes
• A healthy practice environment
• Lifelong learning of unit staff members

The Orthopaedic/Trauma Unit, which is home to eight orthopedic services — orthopedic trauma, spine, joint replacement, pediatrics, tumor, sports, hand, and foot and ankle, achieved 560 points out of a possible 600 points in their application, the fifth highest ever recorded by AMSN.

“I want to congratulate everyone in the Orthopaedic/Trauma Unit for their exemplary work and for the clinical outcomes they are achieving, which are unparalleled nationally,” added Toby Marsh, chief nursing and patient care services officer for UC Davis Medical Center. “To achieve this level of recognition is a credit to the incredible work being done at UC Davis Health that puts the patient at the center of everything we do.”

There are more than 600,000 medical-surgical nurses practicing in the United States today, making them the single largest group of specialty nurses working in hospital settings, according to AMSN. Med-surg nurses oversee a broad spectrum of patient care responsibilities, another reason the acronym “PRISM” was chosen for the award.