Dr. Amy S. Hicks is an exceptional nurse leader who has dedicated her career to improving patient care and enhancing the patient experience, all while supporting, elevating, and nurturing the bedside nurses in her organization. She has a remarkable track record of notable achievements throughout her career, demonstrating her exceptional leadership, commitment to excellence, and dedication to nursing professional development. Her contributions have made a lasting impact on her organization, and she has consistently exceeded expectations in various roles and responsibilities throughout her career. A long-time colleague of Amy recently said of her, “In over two decades at this organization, I have rarely known a nurse leader who has contributed as much to our mission and culture commitments.”

Amy Hicks' dedication to nursing professional development is evident through her extensive education, credentials, and active involvement in professional affiliations. She, her team, and even her family joke about the number of letters behind her name. Amy's dedication to advancing her knowledge, skills, and leadership within the nursing profession is a testament to her unwavering commitment to professional growth and the delivery of exceptional patient care.

Amy creates a space where all belong by passionately advocating for equitable patient care and by nurturing diversity within her team. After successfully defending her doctoral dissertation about recognizing skin injury in diverse patients, she led the development of a learning module to teach nurses what radiation dermatitis looks like in various skin tones. After attending ONS Congress in 2022 and hearing a wonderful presentation on aspects of LGBTQ+ patients and cancer, she presented this to her team and advocated for a speaker on diversity and cancer at our 2023 Kosonen Summit. After her team reviewed a 2022 journal article, Racial and Ethnic Differences in Bystander CPR for Witnessed Cardiac Arrest, she held a specific journal club and facilitated the team in volunteering to teach high school students (hands only) CPR during the Heart of a Champion Atrium Health outreach event.

As the DAISY Committee decided to develop this award for LCI, Amy’s career and achievements were quite literally a roadmap and an inspiration for what a lifetime's worth of achievements really looks like in the field of nursing. If you will allow me, I’d like to offer you a quick overview of the career that inspired the committee to award Amy Hicks with LCI’s very first DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award. Thank you, Amy for being an example and an inspiration for all of the award recipients to come.

Amy has held various roles in nursing, starting as a direct care nurse at CMC’s Ortho-Trauma/Ortho-Spine Unit in 1994 and then spending much of her career in the post-anesthesia care unit at CMC. Since then, Amy has taken on leadership roles that have allowed her to make a significant impact on patient outcomes. As a member of the Senior Leadership Team at Carolina’s Medical Center from 2014-2019, Amy worked closely with other leaders to develop and monitor the nursing strategic plan and individual unit goals. She played a pivotal role in creating a culture of continuous readiness for regulatory visits and emergency management. Amy also served as the NDNQI Coordinator, where she meticulously interpreted and disseminated data reports to unit and service line leaders, instructing them on how to utilize the information to drive performance improvement. Her mentorship and guidance resulted in countless improved performance measures and enhanced patient outcomes.

Amy's commitment to nursing excellence extended to her involvement in various Atrium Health System initiatives. Her contributions to a seemingly endless list of committees helped drive organizational improvements and fostered a culture of excellence. Amy provided programmatic oversight for Service Line
Educators and Clinical Nurse Specialists across the Central Division, ensuring that their work aligned with strategic initiatives and facilitated continuous improvement.

Amy led CMC to Magnet re-accreditation in 2018. Her 400-page application and work included over four thousand nurses and 120 departments. There were zero requests for additional information on the first document submission, which only occurs in ~1% of submissions. During this time, Amy served as operational leader for the Wound Ostomy Care Nurses, achieving Press Ganey Tier I Employee Engagement scores for 3 years. Needless to say, this nurse can multitask! Amy’s collaborative approach and strategic vision only start to explain how she is able to ensure the successful execution of organizational objectives time and again.

In 2019, Dr. Hicks left her role at CMC to serve as the Nurse Manager of the Radiation Oncology service line at LCI. It is here that she designed and implemented evidence-based initiatives that improved patient outcomes and enhanced the overall patient experience. The leadership team that brought Amy into the radiation oncology space often states that she “revolutionized radiation oncology.” She focused on interventions around teammate engagement that led to zero nursing vacancies and 92% GLINT teammate engagement scores across all radiation oncology sites throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Since joining Rad Onc, there has been >300% increase in nurses earning radiation certificates. Professional nursing certification has increased > 100% from 19% (2018) to 42% (current). Patient Satisfaction scores are excellent across the board at Amy’s clinics. Medallia Magnet questions (relating to nursing care) outperformed the national means since Q4 2020. Amy has successfully implemented a vast network of interprofessional shared governance councils within the radiation oncology service line, establishing 16 separate councils that work together to elevate the care provided by nine radiation clinics. The Council at the Morehead Clinic has been nominated and won The Heart of Shared Governance Award, celebrating the top in Atrium Health’s Central Division, two years in a row under her guidance! Dr. Stuart Burri sums it up by saying, “Before Amy came to Rad Onc, he didn’t realize how important it is to have a nursing leader and that he will never be without one in the future.”

Currently, Amy serves as Administrative Director for Levine Cancer’s Proton & Advanced Radiation Center and as Director of Nursing for the Radiation Oncology service line. It is in this space that Amy Hicks has allowed her (1) unquenchable thirst for new knowledge, (2) her expertise of systems management, (3) her embodiment of transformational leadership, and (4) her absolute devotion to the nursing profession to collide to bring cutting-edge oncology treatment options to both her state and region for the first time. The PARC will be the first in North Carolina (and one of ~42 in US). Amy is determined to create the best, most patient-centered proton center in the world, providing access to state-of-the-art treatments with the best experience imaginable.

Finally, while unrelated to Amy’s long list of lifetime career achievements, I would be remiss not to mention the way Amy is a nurse outside of Atrium’s walls because it further exemplifies the dedication she has to her profession and its mission. For anyone who might wonder “if she’s still got it,” I am here to tell you she does. I have seen Amy drop everything in the middle of the night to help both friends and colleagues with medical care at home. From adjusting catheters that just won’t drain to fulfilling the role of hospice nurse when the nurse on the payroll couldn’t get there in time, Amy is there whenever you need her. Somehow, some way.

Amy Hicks's impact on her organization and the lives of countless patients and colleagues is immeasurable. Amy is truly deserving, for her extraordinary contributions to nursing at Atrium Health, of being LCI’s very first recipient of the DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award. This award celebrates Dr. Amy Hicks for a career to be truly proud of and for transforming the landscape of cancer care in our region.