Jill Lord, RN, MS, Chief Nursing Officer and Director of Patient Care Services at Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center (MAHHC), has been named the Vermont Medical Society’s Citizen of the Year f0r 2014. The award is given annually to a non-physician resident of Vermont who has made significant contributions to the health of Vermonters.
In addition to her role as Chief Nursing Officer, Lord serves as the Director of Patient Care Services, overseeing Clinical Services as well as Community Health Outreach programming. She is the former President and a current member of the Vermont Organization of Nurse Leaders, President of the Windsor Area Community Partnership, Secretary of the Mt. Ascutney Hospital Community Health Foundation, and Program Manager of Blueprint for Health. She holds an MS in Human Services Administration from New Hampshire College in Manchester, New Hampshire and has been a nurse for 35 years. In September 2011, she was appointed to the Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Nursing.
In 1998, Lord was instrumental in creating the Vermont Nursing Internship Program in order to help mentor new nursing graduates going into clinical roles. She currently serves as President of the Board. Additionally, Lord has played a key role in implementing a number of highly successful community-based health projects in the Windsor area and surrounding towns. These include helping to establish structured after-school programming for teens, instituting drug and alcohol counseling and recovery programs, coordinating mental health and dental services and food/clothing drives, and serving as an information resource for community members on health care policy changes. Daniel Walsh, MD, President of the Vermont Medical Society cited Lord’s dedication to promoting a healthy community as one of the reasons for her nomination, stating, “[Jill’s] nomination cites [her] strong community health influence through service on a myriad of community health initiatives.”
Currently, Lord is working with several area health partnerships to tackle the urgent issue of opiate addiction in the state. At the New England Rural Health Conference in October, she presented several initiatives currently being implemented at MAHHC to address opiate abuse across Windsor County, including the Mt. Ascutney Prevention Partnership and the Windsor Area Drug Task Force, among others.
“I’m incredibly honored by this award,” Lord said. “And I’m very grateful for the support and collaboration of my colleagues and the many folks who have been willing to get involved and make a difference for our community’s health.”
Founded in 1933, Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center is a not-for-profit community hospital network including the critical access-designated Mt. Ascutney Hospital in Windsor, Vermont, and Ottauquechee Health Center in Woodstock, Vermont. Affiliated with Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the Hospital provides people in communities across the Connecticut River Valley with primary care and a comprehensive suite of specialty services, along with 25 inpatient beds, a therapeutic pool and an acclaimed, 10-bed inpatient rehabilitation department. Mt. Ascutney Hospital is a recipient of the national Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service, one of the most prestigious awards in healthcare, and is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), as well as the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) with Level 3 status, the highest level of medical home designation for delivering quality care.