IHI and The DAISY Foundation™ Honor Extraordinary Nurses in Patient Safety

Individual and Team Awards will be Conferred at the 2025 IHI Patient Safety Congress

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Joanna Clark, CXO Communication
joanna@cxocommunication.com
(207) 712-1404

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and The DAISY Foundationhave announced the recipients of the annual DAISY Award^® for Extraordinary Nursesin Patient Safety. The individual Honoree is Ashley Smith, BSN, RN, MEDSURG-BC, from Prisma Health Oconee Memorial Hospital in Seneca, South Carolina. The team award goes to the Adult Critical Care Nurses in the Intensive Care Units at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

The DAISY Awards will be presented at the 2025 IHI Patient Safety Congress, taking place March 9-11 in San Diego, California. This year’s conference, held during Patient Safety Awareness Week, will bring together health care leaders, professionals, patient and family advocates, and learners from across the full spectrum of patient care. Innovative health care improvement strategies will converge with actionable insights in service of safer and more equitable care for all. Registration for the IHI Patient Safety Congress is open, and the full agenda can be viewed here.

The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses in Patient Safety celebrates nurses and clinical teams for their commitment to patient and workforce safety in the delivery of compassionate care for patients and families. More than 6,900 health care facilities and nursing schools across the US and in 43 countries and territories participate in the annual award program. All nurses and nurse-led teams from these DAISY partner organizations were eligible for the 2025 award.

“This year’s Honorees are particularly noteworthy for the actions they took that resulted in system-wide, and even nationwide, safety improvements,” said Patricia McGaffigan, RN, CPPS, Senior Advisor for Safety, IHI, and President, Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety. “These nurses are saving lives and shaping systems of safer care, and truly embody the spirit of The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses in Patient Safety.”

“Partnering with IHI to honor nurses who have made an impact on patient and workplace safety is a thrill,” said Bonnie Barnes, FAAN, Co-founder, The DAISY Foundation. “This award aligns beautifully with The DAISY Foundation’s focus on compassionate care. There is nothing more compassionate than keeping patients safe from harm.”

Individual Award

Ashley Smith, BSN, RN, MEDSURG-BC, Prisma Health Oconee Memorial Hospital (OMH), Seneca, South Carolina

Ashley Smith’s colleagues know her to be a passionate advocate for patient safety with an unwavering commitment to improving patient outcomes. She has an extraordinary ability to identify safety risks. Prisma Health has a clinical operating system that empowers team members to readily improve the organization, and Ms. Smith has used this system to initiate many enterprise-wide solutions. In one such example, she streamlined the Electronic Health Record (EHR) system to significantly enhance workflow efficiency, allowing nurses to easily visualize patients’ fall risk status on the main screen. This advancement ensured quicker, more informed decision-making, directly benefiting patient care. In another example, Ms. Smith addressed the lack of integration between chair alarms and status boards, bridging this disconnect to create a safer care environment. Her efforts led to an impressive 20% reduction in fall rates on her unit, showcasing her ability to measurably improve patient safety. Both of these improvements impacted the entire 18-hospital health system.

“Ashley Smith is a compassionate and empathetic trailblazer whose vision and tenacity have set a new benchmark for patient safety,” said Connie Spykerman, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, CNORe, Chief Nursing Officer, Prisma Health Oconee Memorial Hospital. “Her impact is invaluable, and her contributions have reshaped protocols and empowered teams to focus on safety. Her dedication to patient safety inspires us all. We are proud of her accomplishments, the culture at Prisma Health that fosters such commitment to excellence in care, and our clinical operating system that gives all of our team members the ability to improve our clinical systems.”

Ms. Smith’s influence extends to medication safety as well, and her leadership in ensuring safe care delivery has revolutionized workflows and added another layer of safety for patients across the organization. She frequently collaborates with her IT colleagues to improve systems to ensure clarity and precision in nursing actions. Her efforts have set standards for accuracy and safety and have transformed the care environment at Oconee Memorial Hospital and throughout the Prisma Health enterprise.

Team Award

Adult Critical Care Nurses, Intensive Care Units, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

ICU nurses at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center consistently demonstrate their extraordinary commitment to patient safety, and one specific example resulted in a nationwide intravenous (IV) pump software recall. Nurses noticed that medication pumps were sounding an excess number of false occlusion alarms and interrupting the delivery of crucial medication. They utilized established communication vehicles and the patient safety reporting system to alert clinical and operational leaders. The nursing team assessed the situation, which quickly revealed that patient safety was at risk. The team collaborated with clinical engineering and the pump manufacturer to identify potential causes. It was discovered that the problem was related to a software upgrade, and that pumps by the same manufacturer deployed across the nation could be having the same issue. These actions led to a nationwide Class 1 recall, defined as a situation in which there is “reasonable probability” that patient exposure to a particular product “will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.”

“This is an extraordinary example of this team’s commitment to excellence through mitigation of patient safety risks,” said Pat Folcarelli, PhD, MA, RN, Chief Nursing Officer, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It is a demonstration of how the staff is passionate about accountability for practice, and most importantly, how they use this passion to advocate for change.”

The ICU team received well-deserved recognition from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which noted their “outstanding contribution in promoting patient safety with medical devices.”

About the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a leading, globally recognized not-for-profit health care improvement organization that has been applying evidence-based quality improvement methods to meet current and future health care challenges for more than 30 years. IHI provides millions of people in health care with methods, tools, and resources to make care better, safer, and more equitable; convenes experts to enable knowledge sharing and peer-learning; and advises health systems and hospitals of all sizes in improving their systems and outcomes at scale. IHI’s mission is to innovate and lead transformational improvement in health and health care worldwide.