NOTE: This message was emailed to Ballad Health team members from Dr. Lisa Smithgall, Ballad Health’s senior vice president and chief nursing executive, on Monday, May 4.
Happy Nurses and Healthcare Week!
Each year, Nurses Week gives us an opportunity to pause and reflect, but more importantly, to celebrate you. Across Ballad Health, our nurses show up every day with skill, compassion, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. You are caregivers, advocates, leaders, mentors, and innovators. You are the heart of our organization and the future of our profession.
This year, I am especially proud of the way our nurses are shaping not only patient outcomes, but our culture.
Through our B Excellent program, we continue to build an environment grounded in respect, accountability, teamwork, and pride in our work. B Excellent isn’t just a program or an initiative… it’s how you show up for each other, how you support patients and families during life’s most vulnerable moments, and how you continuously challenge yourselves to do better, be better and care better.
Because of you, B Excellent is helping to drive cultural change across our health system and creating spaces where everyone feels seen, valued, and empowered to grow.
As we honor our experienced nurses, we are also looking ahead to support our next generation of nursing professionals.
This year, Ballad Health is launching a comprehensive, centralized Nurse Residency Program designed to strengthen new graduate nurse readiness, improve retention, and support long-term professional success. This program reflects our belief that how we support nurses at the very beginning of their careers matters for them, for our teams, and for our patients.
Through this evidence-based, best transition-to-practice program, new graduate nurses will be able to:
- Choose their facility type – tertiary medical centers, large community hospitals or small community hospitals
- Explore the specialties that inspire them, including acute care, emergency department, perioperative services, pediatrics, family birth centers, Behavioral Health and critical care
- Cultivate a strong foundation in professional nursing practice through immersive engagement in a proven American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) nurse residency curriculum across the first twelve months of their transition to practice
The program will offer three seasonal cohorts each year – spring, summer/fall and winter – creating flexibility and predictable pathways for development.
This program is a meaningful investment in the success of our newest nurses, designed to ease the transition from school to practice through clear, supportive timelines that allow for thoughtful advising and placement planning. Most importantly, it ensures that every new nurse enters Ballad Health supported by experienced professionals – those who have walked the path before them and are deeply committed to helping them grow, succeed and thrive.
To our nurses at every stage of their journey – thank you. Thank you for your professionalism, your compassion, your leadership and your commitment to one another. Thank you for choosing this profession and for choosing to serve our communities with such heart.
I am incredibly proud to stand alongside you and honored to serve as your chief nursing executive.
Happy Nurses Week. You make Ballad Health stronger every day.
