Michelle Watkins, MS, RN-BC, Nurse Manager, Glens Falls Hospital

Each shift, our medical surgical unit works to learn something personal about their patients like hobbies, favorite activities, family, pets or life experiences. Staff then document this information on a shared form at the nurses’ station. These small moments of connection not only enhance patient experience, but help staff get through busy shifts by bringing laughter, warmth and perspective to the day.

Anne Meore, LMSW, HTR, Registered Horticultural Therapist, Good Samaritan Hospital, Westchester Medical Center Health Network

The Garden of Hope is a therapeutic garden on our hospital campus designed with accessibility and adaptability as a central focus, allowing all people the opportunity to reap the physical, cognitive, social and psycho-emotional benefit inherent in the natural environment. We provide horticultural therapy programs that offer hands-on engagement with plants and nature and encourage "take-home" learning by hosting monthly garden-to-table demonstrations in addition to gardening-for-health engagement programs.

Patricia Charvat, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Strategy, Mohawk Valley Health System

MVHS implemented a new communications platform, Workvivo, that mirrors an internal social media platform. All staff can access it through their phones or computers in their preferred language — a particularly important feature for our organization which is in a Refugee Resettlement City where 20% of the population speaks English as a second language.

Silvanus Michel, MSM-NL, BSN, CCRN, Director, Nursing, NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County

To address gaps in blood transfusion documentation compliance, our surgical and neurosurgical intensive care unit introduced a blood transfusion Badge Buddy checklist and embedded transfusion checks into bedside handoffs. The protocol standardized expectations and created a replicable model for other high-acuity ICUs, creating a sustainable, low-cost, replicable safety model.

Olushola Latus-Olaifa, Program Director, Community Health, Institute for Community Health and Wellness, Northwell Health

The Faith Leaders Mental Health Forum centers on collaborative learning between Northwell Health and local faith leaders to develop collaborative faith-based approaches to address the most pressing mental health needs. The forum has catalyzed the development of several evidence-based training resources for the faith and broader community, shaped directly by faith leaders’ feedback, that are breaking down stigma and barriers to addressing mental health.

Louann Peña, Director, Operations, Ambulatory Care, SBH Health System

Using surveys sent after every ambulatory encounter, SBH created a real‑time feedback loop that allowed us to understand how patients and their families perceive their care, identify barriers to throughput and intervene quickly to retain patients. Every comment is reviewed and every low score is investigated. This work uncovered the true drivers of patient loyalty: communication, provider presence, wait-time transparency and care navigation.

John R. LaForge, MBA, BSN, RN, CNML, Nurse Manager, Emergency Department, Sisters of Charity Hospital, Catholic Health (Buffalo)

In the emergency department, the speed at which on-call specialists return consult calls is often a point of contention. To decrease barriers of provider-to-provider conversations in emergent situations, we gave all providers cell phones with the Pulsera app to ease the friction of calls and messages between the on-call stroke neurologist and the ED attending.

Carol Gomes, MS, FACHE, CPHQ, MASCP, MT (ASCP) HTL, DLM, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer, Stony Brook University Hospital

Donning Stony Brook red sneakers, C-suite leaders round throughout the hospital and ambulatory sites, providing staff opportunities to drive improvement discussions that are swiftly acted on to build trust and transparency. Each member of the team has taken on the persona of a Peanuts character, which is displayed at our "Peanut Gallery" where senior leaders sit outside the cafeteria during lunch every Tuesday as an open forum for staff, physicians, patients and families to hear concerns and ideas for improvement.

Hannah Farley, Program Manager, Cancer Services Program of the Finger Lakes Region, University of Rochester Medical Center

Cancer Services Program of the Finger Lakes Region outreach staff have nurtured a relationship with the Amish community since 2019. Consistent, respectful groundwork led to us bringing a mobile mammography unit to an Amish-owned store for four years running, screening dozens of Amish and Mennonite women for breast cancer and expanding to colorectal cancer screening with the use of at-home colon cancer tests.

Kimberly Coolidge, MSN, RNC, Nursing Informatics Specialist, University of Vermont Health - Elizabethtown Community Hospital

This AI-enabled nursing documentation tool allows nurses to identify what they want to focus on at the beginning of their shift. Throughout the shift the tool continuously pulls from the nurse’s real-time documentation and synthesizes it into a draft nursing care plan note. Instead of spending additional time rebuilding notes at the end of the shift, nurses receive an organized summary of their care that accurately reflects the patient’s journey and nursing impact.