Cedars-Sinai announced Friday that it has received a gift from the Simms/Mann Family Foundation to support the development of critical nursing leadership programs and initiatives.
"Thanks to the incredible generosity of the Simms/Mann Family Foundation, we have the opportunity to place nurse leaders at the forefront harnessing their collective compassion and problem-solving skills to address the ever-growing challenges in healthcare," said David Marshall, the hospital's senior vice president and chief nursing executive.
The amount of the foundation's gift was not disclosed.
Margo B. Minissian -- executive director of the Geri and Richard Brawerman Nursing Institute and an assistant professor of cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai -- was named the inaugural holder of the Simms/Mann Family Foundation Endowed Chair in Nurse Education, Innovation and Research.
The foundation, formed in 1984, focuses on funding innovation in medicine and education.
"We believe that nurses are uniquely situated to transform patient care by bringing cutting-edge research and best practices to the bedside," said Victoria Simms, the foundation's president. "By supporting Dr. Minissian in her role to develop nurse leaders and facilitate their innovative work, we hope to amplify the impact and visibility of nurses at Cedars-Sinai in a way that can be replicated by other healthcare systems."
Hospital officials said Minissian has a strong interest in protecting healthcare workers during the coronavirus pandemic, and her team of coinvestigators enrolled registered nurses in a study seeking to measure and quantify inflammatory proteins that can be seen before a healthy person becomes sick.
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"By evaluating these proteins immediately before shift work, we might be able to reduce the risk nurses face when caring for COVID-19 patients,"
Minissian said. "The ultimate goal is to develop a point-of-care screening test to help healthcare workers stay healthy while caring for our critically ill on the front lines."
