Washington, DC (September 19, 2023) – The American Academy of Nursing (Academy) has selected four innovative models of care to be named Academy Edge Runners. Edge Runners are evidence-based, nurse-designed models that demonstrate significant clinical, financial, community, and policy outcomes with proven sustainability and replicability. Each of these programs highlights nurses’ ingenuity and collaboration in developing new methods to provide care and promote health equity.

Baby Steps: Nurse-led Telehealth for Transition of Care – Danielle Altares Sarik, PhD, APRN, CPNP-PC; Yui Matsuda, PhD, PHNA-BC, MPH

The Baby Steps program was developed to provide assistance with the transition of care, from hospital to home, for infants who received neonatal intensive care services and their caregivers. The overarching goal of the Baby Steps model is to provide holistic, nurse-led telehealth support to caregivers and infants during the difficult period of transition. With the development of culturally appropriate and language concordant care, the Baby Step model aims to limit any obstructions to receiving care with a comprehensive routine of infant care during and after the discharge process.

Guardian Nurses: Mobile Care Coordinator® Program – Betty Long, MHA, RN; Rebecca Czarkowski, MSN, RN, Joe DiBella; Donna Zazworsky, RN, MS, CCM, FAAN; Eric Armbrecht, PhD; Brandon Lodics, MBA

Guardian Nurses’ Mobile Care Coordinator® program improves both clinical outcomes and health equity by providing high-touch, personal care coordination and patient advocacy to union members and their families. When experienced registered nurses build trusting relationships with patients as they help them navigate the complex healthcare system, they also lower hospital admission and readmission rates through education and early intervention. 

Hawaii Keiki: Healthy & Ready to Learn – Deborah Mattheus, PhD, APRN-Rx, CPNP, FAAN; Mary G. Boland, DrPH, RN, FAAN

The Hawaii Keiki: Healthy & Ready to Learn Program is a partnership between a public state university school of nursing and a state department of education that provides access to no-cost school nursing services for students in Hawaii public schools. The program is enhancing and building school-based health services that screen for treatable health conditions; provides referral to primary health care and patient-centered medical home services; prevents and controls communicable diseases; and provides emergency care for illness or injury.

SPEACS-2: Communication Training and Toolkit – Mary Beth Happ, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA; Judith A. Tate, PhD, RN, FAAN, ATS-F; Kathryn L. Garrett, SLP-CC; Amber E. Barnato, MD, MPH, MS

Based upon the value that all patients have the right to communicate with providers to the fullest extent possible, the SPEACS-2 Communication Training and Toolkit program has overarching goals to improve accuracy and ease of patient-provider communication, increase patient participation in care communication, and, ultimately, reduce patient anxiety, frustration, and sedation exposure. The goals are accomplished by providing training and a toolkit for clinicians to support and facilitate effective communication with communication-impaired patients.

“The Academy is proud to designate these unique and solution-oriented initiatives as Edge Runners. The diverse focus of these models highlights the wide range of services, vital support, and team-based approaches that the nursing profession provides,” said Academy President Kenneth White, PhD, AGACNP, ACHPN, FACHE, FAAN. “Each of these models demonstrate how nurses serve as innovative change agents who are addressing a specific health care challenge—whether it is transition of care for neonates, building trust with members of the community, improving health of students, or empowering nurses and patients when communication is limited.”

All of the Academy Edge Runner profiles are available to view here. The program leads for each of these innovative models of care will be honored at the 2023 Health Policy Conference, taking place October 5-7, 2023, in Washington, DC.