Dawn Brown is a Clinical Program Director, in IDHI Telemedicine and was nominated by a UAMS co-worker. The comments below are taken from her nomination which speak to each characteristic as an outstanding nurse leader:

Creates an environment where attributes of trust, compassion, mutual respect, continued professional development, and ethical behavior are modeled and supported.

Dawn Brown, RN, BSN has been a great leader in Maternal Safety Bundle education and outreach for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Institute for Digital Health & Innovation (IDHI), and the state of Arkansas. Dawn’s contributions make her an impeccable recipient of a 2023 DAISY Award. Dawn is a true public servant and believes in equitable care for everyone. Dawn spearheaded the Arkansas Birth Equity: Perinatal Focus Group in March 2023 bringing together stakeholders from across Arkansas to discuss and prioritize strategies to ensure safe births in Arkansas. She recently completed training to become a “SPEAK UP Ambassador” for the state and the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation. The use of quality improvement and improvement science to eliminate preventable maternal morbidity and mortality along with ending perinatal racial and ethnic disparities is a must. The High-Risk Pregnancy Program’s Perinatal Outreach Workgroup Education and Research (POWER) team has demonstrated increased local and statewide participation under Dawn’s leadership as Clinical Program Director.

I have worked with Dawn Brown for the last 12 months as we plan to launch Arkansas' first perinatal quality collaborative (PQC). Dawn has taken on the role of Program Director for the PQC, in addition to her existing role as Clinical Program Director of the POWER team in the High-Risk Pregnancy Program. I've observed her modeling of ethical behavior, trust, and compassion in the following ways:

1. She enthusiastically accepted an expansion of the scope of her and her team's work, because it will have a positive impact on the health outcomes of mothers.

2. She leads her team with kindness and honesty. She supports her team and provides constructive feedback to colleagues in a positive, respectful way.

Motivates staff with a shared vision and enthusiasm to achieve better outcomes for themselves and their patients and families.

Dawn leads and motivates the POWER team with a shared vision and enthusiasm to achieve better outcomes for themselves, their patients, and their families. Dawn ensures the team is well-equipped to deliver Maternal and Safety education to participating hospitals. In addition to Maternal Safety Bundles, she and the team provide education in Fetal Heart Monitoring, OB simulation drills, Neonatal Resuscitation, and Sugar, Temperature, Airway, and Blood pressure (STABLE). As well as twice-yearly POWER workshops. Dawn supports change.

Throughout the launch of the Arkansas PQC, Dawn has taken the lead in shepherding all stakeholders at UAMS through this change. Some examples of her leadership include:

1. Development of the ARPQC charter to set ambitious but realistic goals for the improvement of maternal health outcomes throughout the state.

2. Securing buy-in from all stakeholders to make the Arkansas PQC the focus of the already planned Spring meeting of the POWER workshop and developing the agenda and presentations to build enthusiasm.
Promotes and enhances the image of nursing within the organization, the community, and the profession including engagement, recognition, and retention.
From the day-to-day operations of POWER to collaborating and partnering with Arkansas’s new Perinatal Quality Collaborative and the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health which Arkansas recently (Fall 2022) became a member of. Dawn consistently focuses on quality improvement initiatives to make giving birth safer locally and across Arkansas.

Based on Dawn’s absolute trust, compassion, mutual respect, ethics, shared vision, enthusiasm, leadership, and professionalism, I highly recommend her for the DAISY Award.

Based on the literature and real-time experience, we know that work-life balance, flexible work options, employee training, employee recognition, and good leadership are proven ways to retain employees. Although Dawn incorporates all the retention strategies, I will speak to the education/training strategy. As a leader, she continually keeps her hand on the pulse of what her team needs to be effective in their jobs and provide the best education to all stakeholders.

In August 2022, POWER team members received certification in the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) Obstetric Patient Safety (OPS) OB Emergencies Workshop. This workshop focuses on leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality such as obstetric emergencies that can happen during pregnancy and postpartum. In December 2022, the certified team members partnered with AWHONN and provided the OPS training to nursing staff (4 instructors and 19 students) across Arkansas, free of charge through an AWHONN OPS grant.

As the Program Director for POWER and the ARPQC, Dawn has an impact on engaging and retaining nurses not just at UAMS, but across the whole state. This impact includes:

1. Guiding professional development opportunities for nurses across the state, including onsite training by the POWER program and didactic online training through the ARPQC.

2. Recognition of nurses across the state who are engaged in stellar quality improvement work.