Fern Malila is an example of a Cerner nurse, who throughout her career has focused on making an impact to patient care. For 20+ years, she has worked in the area of critical care. Today, she is passionate about sharing with other clinicians how APACHE can accurately predict mortality rates and outcomes in the critical care & hospital setting, and has been doing such since 1994. Not only does Fern continually seek knowledge about the work that she does – staying current on issues facing Healthcare IT, best practices, topics that affect the critical care arena, but Fern also contributes to the body of nursing knowledge by participating and publishing critical care research.

During the continual development of APACHE (prior to and after acquisition by Cerner), she has helped us within Cerner (and APACHE) see beyond the ‘tasks’ of the day-in-day-out operations of the ICU, and has ultimately helped us to improve patient care by impacting how we determine patient outcomes. She is passionate about Cerner, pushes for improvements, and always encourages us all to seek ways to make things easier for the clinician at the bedside.

Most importantly, Fern extends herself personally and as a professional Cerner nurse, is willing to go the extra mile… literally. She has been more than willing to travel around the world to share her knowledge and expertise at critical care meetings, and carry the message about how information technology and Cerner, in particular, brings value to clinicians. From Malaysia to China to Dubai, and every state in the US, she offers guidance, consulting services, and encourages clinicians to embrace Healthcare IT as she knows that ultimately it will positively impact patients. Fern cares.

I hope that you will consider Fern Malila as one of the extraordinary nurses, perfect for the DAISY Award! It has been a privilege to work with Fern, and we treasure all that we have learned from our colleague!