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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 6, 2015
Media Contacts:
Cedric Yamanaka
(808) 691-4975
[email protected]
The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses honors
The Queen’s Medical Center’s Eileen Wong with 2015 Circle of
Excellence Award
Wong among 25 nurses nationwide recognized for excellent outcomes in the care of acute
and critical patients and their families
HONOLULU – The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) has honored
The Queen’s Medical Center’s Eileen D. U. Wong, RN, BSN, CCRN, with its 2015
Circle of Excellence Award.
Wong is a Registered Nurse at The Queen’s Medical Center, where she has been
employed for 22 years. Her duties in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) include
providing patient care with attention to the patient’s physical, emotional, and social
needs. She includes the family at all steps and is a tireless patient advocate.
As SICU Unit Council chair for the past 3 years, Wong has had her finger on the pulse of
patient satisfaction scores for her unit. She has helped to initiate the “Buddy System” for
safe patient care, with every patient being monitored 24/7 by the primary nurse or a
designated nurse buddy. Wong has been the co-leader for implementing the DAISY
award, a hospital-wide award program for nurses giving direct patient care. She has
championed nominating nurses who have gone on to become members of the Circle of
Excellence themselves.
Wong has also been instrumental over the past 2 years in her unit’s journey to the Beacon
award, an award given to individual hospital nursing units by AACN and is an equivalent
to the Magnet Award, an award of nursing excellence. She maintained a steady progress
and arranged for all the needed resources to complete the submission of the Beacon
award application in September of 2014. In March, The Queen’s Medical Center SICU
received the first Beacon award in the state of Hawaii.
The Circle of Excellence award is bestowed annually to up to 25 outstanding nurses
nationwide for achieving excellent outcomes in the care of acutely and critically ill
patients and their families. Wong is the fourth Queen’s nurse to receive this award.
This year’s 25 honorees will be recognized at AACN’s National Teaching Institute &
Critical Care Exposition in San Diego, May 18-21.
Criteria used to evaluate the Circle of Excellence Award candidates include relentless
promotion of patient-driven excellence; communication skills; true collaboration;
effective decision making; meaningful recognition of others; ability to transform
thinking, structures and processes; and ability to address challenges and remove barriers
to excellent patient care and achieve visible results through leadership.
AACN’s Circle of Excellence Awards align with the association’s mission of creating a
healthcare system driven by the needs of patients and their families in which acute and
critical care nurses make their optimal contribution.
Awardees receive a plaque and a $1,000 honorarium and become members of the Circle
of Excellence Society.
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About The Queen’s Medical Center: The Queen’s Medical Center, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit corporation established in 1859 by
Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV, is an acute care medical facility accredited by The Joint Commission. The facility is
licensed for 505 acute beds and 28 sub-acute beds and serves as the major tertiary and quaternary referral center for cancer,
cardiovascular disease, neuroscience, orthopaedics, surgery, emergency medicine and behavioral health medicine. It is the state’s
designated trauma center verified as Level 2 by the American College of Surgeons. It has the only organ transplantation program in
Hawaii. Queen’s is a major teaching hospital, serving as a clinical training site for the residency programs sponsored by the John A.
Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. Queen’s is the only hospital in Hawaii to achieve Magnet® status – the highest
institutional honor for hospital excellence – from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The Queen’s Medical Center has over
4,500 employees and over 1,200 physicians on its Medical Staff.
About the National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition: Established in 1974, AACN’s National Teaching Institute &
Critical Care Exposition (NTI) represents the world’s largest educational conference and trade show for nurses who care for acutely
and critically ill patients and their families. Bedside nurses, nurse educators, nurse managers, clinical nurse specialists and nurse
practitioners attend NTI.
About the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses: Founded in 1969 and based in Aliso Viejo, California, the American
Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) is the largest specialty nursing organization in the world. AACN joins together the
interests of more than 500,000 acute and critical care nurses and includes more than 240 chapters worldwide. The organization’s
vision is to create a healthcare system driven by the needs of patients and their families in which acute and critical care nurses make
their optimal contribution.