Connecticut Nurses’ Association honors Sue Fitzsimons

The Connecticut Nurses' Association (CNA) honored Sue Fitzsimons RN, PhD, senior vice president, Patient Services, with its highest award at its annual dinner in October.

Fitzsimons received the Doris Armstrong Award for outstanding contributions to nursing administration. The award recognized Fitzsimons for her successful 5-year effort to earn Magnet designation for the York Street campus of Yale New Haven Hospital, for developing nurse leaders, creating the culture in which bedside nurses participate in collaborative governance and increasingly do research that results in evidence-based practice, supporting emerging nurse leaders, and her efforts to begin to standardize nursing throughout the Yale New Haven Health System.

The CNA also awarded the Florence S. Wald Award for outstanding contributions to nursing practice to Alison Moriarty Daly, APRN, MSN, a pediatric nurse practitioner at Career High School-Based Health Center and Adolescent Clinic, and associate professor, Yale School of Nursing. She provides primary care services to the teens at the school-based clinic and provides education to students about health behaviors. She was appointed to the Mayor's Task Force to Prevent Teen Pregnancy in 2006 and appointed chair in 2008.

The CNA also awarded a media award to the YNHH Nursing Update for capturing two years of work by YNHH nurses as they successfully collaborated on achieving Magnet designation in 2011. Lori Hubbard, RN, manager, Office of Nursing Excellence, accepted the award for the hospital.

"Yale New Haven Hospital is known for exceptional, highly trained nurses who are fully dedicated to quality, compassionate care," said Richard D'Aquila, president YNHH. "Our nurses are well served by Sue Fitzsimons's vision and leadership which led the way to Magnet designation for the hospital last year.

"Sue's efforts ensure that we continue to develop the nurse and hospital leaders who distinguish us as a premier American hospital," D'Aquila added. "It's always rewarding when others recognize outstanding nurses like Sue Fitzsimons and Alison Moriarty-Daley."

Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH), part of Yale New Haven Health, is a nationally recognized, 1,541-bed, not-for-profit hospital serving as the primary teaching hospital for the Yale School of Medicine (YSM). Founded as the fourth voluntary hospital in the U.S. in 1826, today, YNHH has two New Haven-based campuses, and also includes Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital and Smilow Cancer Hospital. YNHH has received Magnet designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the nation’s highest honor of nursing excellence. YNHH has a combined medical staff of about 4,500 university and community physicians practicing in more than 100 specialties. www.ynhh.org