September 13, 2022

By Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science staff

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Hear from the recipients of the Diamond Quality Fellow Lifetime Achievement Award which recognizes staff for their long-standing commitment to quality.

The Diamond Quality Fellow Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes staff for a long-standing commitment to quality improvement. Sandra Booth, Nancy Dawson, M.D., and David Nestler, M.D., were named Diamond Quality Fellow Lifetime Award winners for 2022.

Diamond Quality Lifetime Award winners are nominated by their peers and selected by the Quality Academy. Award recipients are recognized for their long-standing commitment to quality improvement.

Learn more about each recipient:

Sandra Booth, Quality Academy

Sandra Booth's career in quality and process improvement spans more than two decades, including leadership roles in health care and financial services. As director of Strategic Projects and Quality Improvement for the Quality Academy, Booth is an experienced instructor, coach and mentor of quality improvement. Her many Silver and Gold project contributions have earned recognition, including two annual Quality Improvement Project Excellence Awards from the Quality Review Board. The projects also have resulted in three peer-reviewed publications.

Booth is a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a Prosci-certified change management practitioner. She holds Mayo Clinic Gold Quality Fellows certification and is an assistant professor of health care systems engineering in Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Booth is on the Mayo Clinic Quality Academy Education Committee and Curriculum Oversight Subcommittee, and is ex-officio for the Mayo Quality Fellows Program.

Booth shared her thoughts about the award and the work.

"It is incredibly fulfilling to be a part of a community of like-minded quality improvement enthusiasts and an honor to be included in these awards," she says. "I would like to encourage others to engage in quality improvement. It doesn't have to be scary. Start small and persevere because closing even one quality gap can have a huge impact. If you get stuck, ask for help. Across the enterprise, there are quality improvement experts, along with Gold and Silver Quality Fellows, who were once starting their own quality improvement journey. The Quality Academy provides a wide variety of improvement educational tools, classes and curriculums, along with project step-by-step guides to help." 

Nancy Dawson, M.D., Hospital Internal Medicine

Nancy Dawson, M.D., has an extensive background in quality improvement, having led several quality improvement and Lean initiatives at Mayo Clinic in Florida and across the organization. Her efforts include reducing medication errors, improving hospital throughput and reducing 30-day readmissions.

Dr. Dawson was the first physician at Mayo Clinic to earn Gold certification in quality improvement. She is on the Clinical Practice Quality Oversight Committee at Mayo Clinic in Florida and medical director for Quality Data Management and Performance Improvement for Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Dawson is an associate professor of medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, and an associate program director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. She has received several teaching awards and chairs the residency Clinical Competency Committee. She has written the curriculum for the Quality Improvement Program in the residency and oversees five resident quality team projects each year. She has published several studies on quality improvement.

Dr. Dawson was the medical director for Mayo Clinic Hospital in Florida for eight years. In this role, she was responsible for all aspects of the clinical practice in the hospital, serving on multiple additional leadership committees within Mayo Clinic. This included Mayo Clinic in Florida's Executive Operations Team and the Clinical Practice Committee.

She also was chair of the Division of Hospital Internal Medicine in Florida for nine years; chair of Hospital Internal Medicine at the hospital at Mayo Clinic Health System in Waycross, Georgia; a chair of Anesthesia; and interim chair of Dermatology. She now chairs the outpatient Division of General Internal Medicine.

Dr. Dawson says she is humbled to be receiving this award and that quality improvement work has been of great help to her and to her patients.

"The principles of quality improvement that I have learned through the Quality Academy and my work in quality are the same principles I use in my leadership roles — defining, measuring and analyzing problems to trial solutions, change management, etc.," she says. "And I know that this training has helped me be a better leader. By participating in quality improvement, we have the opportunity to affect the care of many of our patients. I love caring for patients one at a time and seeing their health and lives improve. But a quality improvement project has the potential to do this for a multitude of patients throughout their health care journey."

David Nestler, M.D., Emergency Medicine

David Nestler, M.D. has extensive experience with health care quality within and outside of Mayo Clinic. Together with Lori Scanlan-Hanson, a nursing quality specialist in the Emergency Department and previous Diamond Quality Fellow Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, he has overseen the creation and refinement of a complex intradepartmental quality structure that focuses on five key areas that are used by many departments within Mayo. He has been invited to speak at multiple academic institutions on this topic.

He co-created a comprehensive Quality curriculum within the Emergency Department that has been used in several other Mayo Clinic departments. He oversaw the 2016 redesign of the Mayo Clinic Quality Academy's Bronze quality curriculum. Also, through a Center for Innovation grant, he created a comprehensive care review system.

Dr. Nestler is the medical director for Patient Experience at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, an associate professor of emergency medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, and the quality chair for the Emergency Department at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

He has dedicated his career to health care improvement and systems optimization. As medical director for Patient Experience in Rochester, he oversaw a complete redesign that changed Mayo Clinic's approach to improving the patient experience. Through simplified reporting, motivational interviewing and increased engagement, Patient Experience has achieved unprecedented patient survey scores. Nationally, he has served on, and had leadership roles with Patient Experience's Quality and Patient Safety Committee and the Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Section of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Dr. Nestler says he is proud to be a part of Mayo Clinic.

"Mayo Clinic staff are the most amazing partners for quality improvement. Unlike so many hospitals, we never settle here," Dr. Nestler says. "The culture is one focused on constant improvement, and health care quality work will continue to grow. Quite honestly, this award is the highlight of my career. Mayo Clinic has emerged and maintained its ranking in large part due to its commitment to outcomes, safety and service. Being recognized within, and by, this group is humbling, and I am eternally grateful."

"I am an emergency medicine physician, and emergency departments are highly technical spaces," he says. "Managing an unscheduled population with acuities that vary from minor to life-threatening requires widespread utilization of quality fundamentals. Through studying and applying these principles, I became involved in department-specific and Mayo Clinic-wide quality. Much of my work, however, has been focused on where 'the rubber hits the road.' I recognize that institutional groups can provide invaluable motivation, surveillance and oversight. Improving patient care, however, happens inside departments and divisions. The design of an intradepartmental approach to quality improvement has brought tremendous fulfillment to my career, and I hope to continue improving quality strategies that directly affect patient care."

About the award

Any Mayo Clinic staff member in good standing with at least 10 years of experience in leading quality improvement at Mayo Clinic is eligible for the Mayo Clinic Diamond Quality Fellow Award.