Sharlene Toney
April 2022
Sharlene
Toney
,
PhD, RN
Center for Nursing Excellence-Wellstar Development Center
Wellstar Health System
Atlanta
,
GA
United States
Sharlene’s joy is in helping nurses to lead, innovate, and improve in practice and patient outcomes.
Sharlene Toney is an experienced Executive Nurse Leader with a demonstrated history of working in the hospital and health care industry. Sharlene is skilled in acute care, electronic medical record (EMR), clinical practice and outcomes, nursing research, nursing quality and outcomes, and nursing education. Sharlene is a strong professional with a PhD in Nursing from Georgia State University and has been a leader in the work of shared nursing leadership ensuring clinical nurses at the bedside have a voice in their practice for many years. She has demonstrated the ability to lead and direct the organizations Journey to Magnet® Designation.
Sharlene is a collaborative nurse leader with proven ability to work with various organizational clinical and administrative leaders, and clinical nurses to create an environment that fosters nursing excellence, patient/family satisfaction, and optimal patient outcomes. Sharlene’s leadership has been especially important in the pandemic as the frontline clinical staff have great feedback on what works and did not work in their care of patients.
Prior to coming to Wellstar, Sharlene retired from Emory Healthcare where she was critical in nursing research, and support for initial Magnet® designation for Emory University Hospital. She implemented nursing protocols for care of Ebola patients in collaboration with the Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNSs) and other infectious disease nurses and providers at Emory. I’m nominating Sharlene because she is retiring from nursing at Wellstar this year and her accomplishments throughout her career are deserving of lifetime achievement recognition. Sharlene joined Wellstar in December 2018 and currently serves as the Executive Director of Professional Practice, Wellstar Center for Nursing Excellence. In this role, she partners with the hospital Professional Practice Leaders, Chief Nursing Officers, and Executive Nursing Leaders to provide oversight for the Magnet® and Pathway to Excellence® designation journeys while serving as the System Program Director. This scope of work includes conducting gap analyses, facilitating system and hospital level gap closures, document submissions, site visits, and significantly contributed to the achievements of Pathway to Excellence® and Magnet® designations by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (AACN) for Wellstar Douglas and Paulding Hospitals in April 2020 and October 2021 respectively.
Sharlene was instrumental in introducing the Nurse Residency Program model from Vizient, relaunching the Shared Leadership model across the system. Most recently, Sharlene is finishing document submission for Wellstar’s new graduate nurse residency program, Practice Transition Accreditation Program (PTAP). ® Many might consider being able to support and see through the following designations in one’s career, Pathway to Excellence®, Magnet®, and PTAP, ® to be the “triple crown” of nursing excellence.
During COVID-19, Sharlene was engaged in creating personal protective equipment (PPE) competencies and reuse guidelines in addition to the ultraviolet decontamination process. Sharlene worked collaboratively with nursing, infection prevention specialist, materials management, and engineers to create ultraviolet process for disinfecting N-95 masks during a time when the supply chain was limited. This work was presented at Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference in 2021 and recently published in Nature in 2022.
Sharlene has completed numerous research studies, publications, and presentations and helped to form the first Evidence-Based Nursing Research Conference that continued for 10-plus years where nurses in the Southeast come to showcase their work. She led in the creation of Nurse Sensitive Indicator dashboards for clinical nurses to have data to share on the quality of care they deliver that impacts patients and ways to compare their care at a local as well as national level. Sharlene’s joy is in helping nurses to lead, innovate, and improve in practice and patient outcomes. She is truly deserving of this lifetime achievement award and recognition. It is a privilege to work alongside Sharlene as a nurse leader and it is an honor to support Sharlene’s nomination for The DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sharlene is a collaborative nurse leader with proven ability to work with various organizational clinical and administrative leaders, and clinical nurses to create an environment that fosters nursing excellence, patient/family satisfaction, and optimal patient outcomes. Sharlene’s leadership has been especially important in the pandemic as the frontline clinical staff have great feedback on what works and did not work in their care of patients.
Prior to coming to Wellstar, Sharlene retired from Emory Healthcare where she was critical in nursing research, and support for initial Magnet® designation for Emory University Hospital. She implemented nursing protocols for care of Ebola patients in collaboration with the Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNSs) and other infectious disease nurses and providers at Emory. I’m nominating Sharlene because she is retiring from nursing at Wellstar this year and her accomplishments throughout her career are deserving of lifetime achievement recognition. Sharlene joined Wellstar in December 2018 and currently serves as the Executive Director of Professional Practice, Wellstar Center for Nursing Excellence. In this role, she partners with the hospital Professional Practice Leaders, Chief Nursing Officers, and Executive Nursing Leaders to provide oversight for the Magnet® and Pathway to Excellence® designation journeys while serving as the System Program Director. This scope of work includes conducting gap analyses, facilitating system and hospital level gap closures, document submissions, site visits, and significantly contributed to the achievements of Pathway to Excellence® and Magnet® designations by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (AACN) for Wellstar Douglas and Paulding Hospitals in April 2020 and October 2021 respectively.
Sharlene was instrumental in introducing the Nurse Residency Program model from Vizient, relaunching the Shared Leadership model across the system. Most recently, Sharlene is finishing document submission for Wellstar’s new graduate nurse residency program, Practice Transition Accreditation Program (PTAP). ® Many might consider being able to support and see through the following designations in one’s career, Pathway to Excellence®, Magnet®, and PTAP, ® to be the “triple crown” of nursing excellence.
During COVID-19, Sharlene was engaged in creating personal protective equipment (PPE) competencies and reuse guidelines in addition to the ultraviolet decontamination process. Sharlene worked collaboratively with nursing, infection prevention specialist, materials management, and engineers to create ultraviolet process for disinfecting N-95 masks during a time when the supply chain was limited. This work was presented at Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference in 2021 and recently published in Nature in 2022.
Sharlene has completed numerous research studies, publications, and presentations and helped to form the first Evidence-Based Nursing Research Conference that continued for 10-plus years where nurses in the Southeast come to showcase their work. She led in the creation of Nurse Sensitive Indicator dashboards for clinical nurses to have data to share on the quality of care they deliver that impacts patients and ways to compare their care at a local as well as national level. Sharlene’s joy is in helping nurses to lead, innovate, and improve in practice and patient outcomes. She is truly deserving of this lifetime achievement award and recognition. It is a privilege to work alongside Sharlene as a nurse leader and it is an honor to support Sharlene’s nomination for The DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award.