The ENA Lantern Award recognizes emergency departments that demonstrate exceptional and innovative performance in leadership, practice, education, advocacy and research — a way to showcase your ED’s accomplishments in incorporating evidence-based practice and innovation into emergency care, and a visible symbol of your commitment to quality, safety, and a healthy work environment.

Your Lantern Award Story

The Lantern Award application asks you to tell your story. What you are proud of and what you do well is the story we want to hear.

The Lantern Award application includes quantitative questions that focus on performance and outcome metrics, as well as qualitative questions about noteworthy practices and attributes of your emergency department. The qualitative questions require brief narratives or longer descriptive exemplars that highlight your emergency department’s excellence and innovation.

Your story, as you define it in your application, will cover each of these core areas:

• Leadership – Practice: qualities that foster professional pride, confidence and a community of support for emergency nurses
• Leadership – Operations: operational improvement activities and development of systems and processes
• Education: instilling knowledge and competency through quality and accessible education
• Advocacy: how the future of the emergency nursing profession and quality patient care are influenced through advocacy and innovation in your emergency department
• Research – Practice: advancing the emergency nursing profession and practice through quality improvement, research and the evaluation of clinical outcomes.

Lantern Award recipients receive a physical award to display in their emergency department as well as recognition through ENA publications, conferences, and the ENA website. In addition, award recipients are entitled to use an official Lantern Award seal in communications and advertising for the duration of the award period (e.g., in email signatures, on your website).

The Lantern Award is open to all emergency departments who complete the online application. The award period is three years and recipients have the option of re-applying at the end of their award period.

Getting Started

The first step on your journey to the Lantern Award is to review the Handbook, Coaching Guide, and FAQs completely to determine whether you can provide the measures and stories of excellence that are required to become an award recipient.

The 2023 (Cycle 13) Lantern Award application is now closed.

The 2024 (Cycle 14) application will be available mid-Nov, 2023.

 

Prior to beginning your application, please review the "Application Assistance" documents to ensure your emergency department is ready to apply.

Please contact LanternAward@ena.org with any questions.