The surgical intensive care unit at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, a member of Northwell Health, has received the gold-level Beacon Award for Excellence by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.
The Beacon Award recognizes critical care units that employ evidence-based practices to improve patient and family outcomes. The AACN award provides gold, silver and bronze levels of recognition for three years to hospital units that exemplify excellence in professional practice patient care and outcomes.
Only 191 critical care units at hospitals across the United States earned gold Beacon Awards in the last year – seven of them SICUs. There are currently 570 units overall, including 25 at Northwell Health hospitals. In addition to the SICU, LIJ’s medical intensive care unit is a silver Beacon winner.
“The SICU is the first critical care unit at LIJ to receive the coveted gold Beacon Award,” said Margaret Murphy, associate executive director of Patient Care Services and chief nursing officer at LIJ. “This award exemplifies the high-quality care and extraordinary dedication continuously demonstrated by this team. Year after year they continue to raise the bar with the care they deliver and as a result achieve unprecedented patient outcomes in all hospital-acquired conditions.”
Recipients of a gold-level Beacon Award demonstrate staff-driven excellence in sustained unit performance and improved patient outcomes that exceed national benchmarks.
In addition, AACN evaluates leadership and organizational ethics; appropriate staffing and staff engagement; effective communication, knowledge management and learning development; evidence-based practice and processes; and outcome measurements.
“This achievement was possible because of the hard work and commitment of the SICU team,” said Marybeth Grieser, RN, director of Patient Care Services at LIJ. “They are a terrific and talented group of professionals that provide the highest level of care to our patients.”
Long Island Jewish Medical Center is a 583-bed, tertiary care, teaching hospital that treats more than 80,000 patients each year. It is home to the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Hospital, the Katz Women’s Hospital and has nine clinical specialties ranked in the top 50 nationally by US News & World Report.
