2005 NJSNA C.A.R.E. Awards

New Jersey Nurse, May/Jun 2005

2005 NJSNA C.A.R.E. Award for Excellence in Research

Jane Bliss-Holtz

Jane Bliss-Holtz, received her Baccalaureate (summa cum laude), Masters and Doctorate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing and is specialty certified in Nursing Informatics. Jane is a seasoned nurse researcher who has facilitated nursing research through the procurement of funding resources as a principal investigator or co-investigator from many major granting agencies including National Institutes of Health -National Center for Nursing Research, the New Jersey Department of Health, the American Nurses' Foundation, and most recently the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She has also been a grant editor and/or consultant on grants from The National Institutes of Health-Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, the National Institutes of Health-National Center for Nursing Research, The New Jersey Chapter of the March of Dimes and has served as a member of the National Committee on Research of the Nurses' Association of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (NAACOG-now AWHONN).

She was a member of the Research Utilization Project Group that developed and directed the prototype project "Transition of the Preterm Infant to Open Crib," the first nationwide research utilization project funded by the association and was also commissioned by the (then) National Center for Nursing Research-National Institutes of Health, to write an information paper on thermoregulatory issues in the low birth weight infant for use by the Center's Priority Expert Panel (PEP-A) on Low Birth Weight Infants.

She has published extensively in such journals as Nursing Research, Nursing Science Quarterly, Advances in Nursing Science, Scholarly Inquiry for Nursing Practice, and Computers in Nursing and has presented at numerous international, national state and local conferences. She currently serves the nursing research community as a manuscript reviewer for Nursing Research and Computers in Nursing, and has been a grant and abstract reviewer for many associations including the American Nurses' Foundation, the New Jersey State Nurses Association, the American Nurses' Association, Sigma Theta Tau, and the International Orem Society.

In January 1998 she assumed the editorship of Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, a refereed journal with a 25 year publishing history. Since assuming this role, Jane revised the mission of the journal to include that of fostering authors who are new to the publishing process and she has been able to aid dozens of new authors through manuscript revisions to attain publication of their research studies.

Jane has taught nursing research at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In 2000, she received the Governor's Nursing Merit Award for Nursing Research from the NJ Department of Health and Senior Services. In her role, she is often called upon to serve as the research consultant for many interdisciplinary projects. In 2001, she designed the research methodology that is being used to evaluate a bloodless surgery program which received one of only two Certificate of Needs awarded from the NJ State Department of Health and Senior Services. Recently, she mentored the director of the Center for Bloodless Surgery, a novice nurse researcher, in obtaining a grant to facilitate production of a series of research publications based on data from the Center. In addition, she assisted advanced practice nurses in the Heart Failure Center by writing a proposal that secured $250,000 of funding from the State for "The Empowering Heart Program," which supports the work of a Nurse Practitioner-directed Congestive Heart Failure Center to utilize nursing research findings in practice.

In 2002, the three campuses of the Meridian Health System successfully renewed their ANCC Magnet certification. At the final debriefing, the Magnet surveyors commended each campus on their impressive research efforts; Jane was key in assisting the hospitals to attain that commendation.

Congratulations Jane Bliss-Holtz, DNSc, RN, BC

2005 NJSNA C.A.R.E. Award for Excellence in Clinical Practice

Deanna V. Johnson, MS, APRN, BC

Deanna Vaughn Johnson is a Certified Advanced Practice Nurse in psychiatry and mental health. She is the president and chief executive officer of Holistic Urban Guidance Center in West Orange, New Jersey. HUG, as it is affectionately called, provides comprehensive assessment and diagnosis and offers an integrative treatment approach including conventional and traditional complementary/alternative interventions.

Deanna established Holistic Urban Guidance Center in September 2000, having previously served as psychotherapist and counseling supervisor for Rutgers University College of Nursing Education Opportunity Fund Program. In that position, she also helped establish the Minority Nurse Leadership Institute and provided mental health services campus wide to victims of sexual assault and violent crimes. Earlier, while a faculty member at Rutgers College of Nursing, Johnson developed and operated a recruitment/retention program for the Community Health Nursing Graduate Program. Deanna is well-known throughout the education community for her assistance and support of minority nursing students. Her help has been invaluable to their success.