Monmouth Medical Center and Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus, RWJBarnabas Health facilities, are two of 96 hospitals in the United States to be honored by the Emergency Nurses Association with their Lantern Award, which recognizes emergency departments that demonstrate exceptional and innovative performance in leadership, practice, education, advocacy, and research.
The award recipients will be recognized during the Emergency Nurses Association’s Emergency Nursing 2025 celebration Sept. 17-20 in New Orleans.
It is the second consecutive time Monmouth Medical Center’s emergency department has been honored with the Lantern Award.
“This recognition reflects the highest standards of emergency nurse excellence, professionalism, and patient-centered care,” said Nancy Holecek, executive vice president and chief nursing officer of RWJBarnabas Health.
The ENA Lantern Award application focuses on innovative practices and noteworthy attributes of the emergency department, collaborative approaches to delivering optimal care for patients, performance and outcome metrics, characteristics of the nursing team, and facility and emergency department demographics. It distinguishes an emergency department’s commitment to quality, safety, and presence of a healthy work environment.
“Receiving this second consecutive Lantern Award recognition is such a great reward for our team,” said Sharmine Brassington, administrative director of emergency services at MMC. The Lantern Award serves as a visible symbol to our community that excellence is valued, and that exceptional care is provided in our Emergency Department.”
She noted that MMC’s ED was recognized for implementing a “throughput nurse” role to further optimize patient flow through a nurse who focuses on expediting discharges, facilitating admissions to inpatient units, and assisting triage during surges in ED volume. In addition, the reward recognized the department’s commitment to fostering nurse well-being to support high-quality patient care and increased staff satisfaction.
“MMCSC Emergency Department has an exceptional care team that not only provides quality care to patients, our professional nursing council is committed to community outreach to educate and create awareness of the ways to stay safe,” says Tamer Abdelhakiem, administrative director of emergency and critical care services. “Our team works in sync to raise the bar in areas such as decreased wait times, above average patient experience scores and amplified employee engagement. We could not be prouder of this recognition.”
Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus is an acute-care hospital in Lakewood. An affiliate of RWJBarnabas Health, Monmouth South is a sister hospital to Monmouth Medical Center, a teaching hospital located in Long Branch.
