I am proud to announce that I’ve won an award for the “Best Nursing Innovation” in Nurse.org’s 2025 Best of Nursing Awards.
This award, which highlights the Awake and Walking ICU initiative, is a triumphant recognition of nursing innovation, and all those nurses who’ve worked tirelessly over the years to develop these protocols and advocate for evidence-based ICU practices.
Without them, I couldn’t have won this award, and the idea of an Awake and Walking ICU may have remained in obscurity indefinitely.
With that in mind, this accolade honors the pioneering efforts of dedicated innovators like Polly Bailey, APRN, and Louise Bezdjian, APRN, whose relentless commitment and sacrifices have shaped, studied, and perpetuated this revolutionary approach to ICU patient care.
Polly’s journey began with a poignant realization, after witnessing the profound physical, psychological, and cognitive impacts on a young intensive care survivor.
Guided by her nursing instincts, she sought a transformative solution during a time when the prevailing norm dictated that nurses merely follow physicians’ orders.
Her audacious inquiries challenged the established practices of her day by asking:
- “Why are we automatically sedating every patient?”
- “Why not embrace the potential benefits of keeping patients awake and mobile whenever possible?”
- “What if we facilitated mobility and alertness post-intubation, rather than postponing rehabilitation until later?”
Still, despite the incontrovertible evidence that her approach dramatically improves patient outcomes, Polly faced significant resistance – losing friends, enduring mockery, and battling for support in the face of entrenched skepticism.
Nevertheless, her remarkable perseverance in confronting the status quo speaks volumes about her dedication to improving outcomes for ICU patients.
This award also symbolizes a victory for ICU revolutionists worldwide, who have been fighting for a more humane and evidence-based intensive care environment.
All things considered, the recognition of the Awake and Walking ICU as a nurse-led innovation marks a pivotal moment in our field, as it signifies a growing realization among ICU clinicians that traditional practices are not immutable and should evolve in the name of providing better care.
The tides are changing, and the ICU revolution is underway, bolstered by the ABCDEF Bundle.
Critical care medicine is on an upward trajectory, moving toward the widespread standardization of Awake and Walking ICUs.
And together, we are embracing this paradigm shift, igniting hope for the future of critical care – one in which patient dignity and mobility take center stage in the healing journey.
I stumbled upon Kali’s podcast midway through my anesthesia critical care fellowship in February 2021. At our institution, I got the impression that patients in the ICU either got better on their own or had a prolonged and complicated course to LTAC or death. In her podcast, Kali explained that LTAC was rarely the outcome for patients in the Awake and Walking ICU in Salt Lake City.
