St. Cloud Hospital Surgical Care Unit 1 receives award for exemplary practice

Photo: Jill Arzouman, AMSN president (center) presents the PRISM Award to members of St. Cloud Hospital's Surgical Care Unit 1. 

Surgical Care Unit 1 at St. Cloud Hospital has received the prestigious AMSN PRISM Award^®, a relatively new honor recognizing exceptional nursing practice, leadership and outcomes in hospital medical-surgical units across the country.

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. 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.

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 work environment
• Lifelong learning of unit staff members

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.