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Janet Pettit Memorial Award

The Janet Pettit Memorial Award honors the contributions of an outstanding neonatal nurse, Janet Pettit, DNS, RNC, NNP, who worked for over 30 years in the NICU as a clinical nurse, manager, outreach educator, clinical nurse specialist, and nurse practitioner. Janet was a tireless volunteer with CPQCC, lending her expertise to the Perinatal Quality Improvement Panel (PQIP) for over 13 years. She also served as a clinical consultant to the California Children's Services' (CCS) Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infection (CLABSI) Collaborative. 

Janet led multiple publications and clinical research efforts in the area of vascular access. She was the co-author of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN) PICC Guidelines, was a task force member for the AVA Best Practice Guidelines for Pediatric Central Venous Catheters, and served as a reviewer for the Infusion Nurses Society's Infusion Standards of Practice and on the Board of Directors for NANN and the Association for Vascular Access. For her excellence in vascular access, she received the Suzanne LeVere Herbst Award. 

In honor of Janet's legacy, the Pettit Award is granted to a Registered Nurse (RN), advanced practice nurse (NNP, CNS), or a NICU QI team who:

  • has made significant contributions to neonatal quality improvement within their unit and beyond or
  • is an emerging QI leader in the neonatal community 

Nominations are open from March 1st - January 31st every year. Awards are presented at CPQCC's annual Improvement Palooza event every March. 

Submit a nomination for the Pettit Award


2023 Awardee

Rachelle Sey, PhD, APRN, CNS, RNC-NIC
NICU Clinical Nurse Specialist, Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns

Rachelle is a champion of quality improvement. She co-authored the CPQCC HAI Prevention in the NICU Toolkit, oversees the Performance Improvement Projects in the NICU, leads the skin-to-skin QI project, and always strives to improve the quality of care.

Past Awardees

2022: Jennifer Norgaard, RNC-NIC, MSN, ACCNS-P (Valley Children’s Healthcare)
2021: Latisha Picard, BSN, MBA, IBCLC (Santa Clara Valley Medical Center)
2020: Angela Huang, RNC-Nic, BSN, MPH (Quality & Data Nurse Coordinator, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center)
2019: Ching Tay, MS, CNS, RNC-NIC (Clinical Nurse Specialist at Miller Children's & Women's Hospital Long Beach)
2018: Elizabeth Drake, RNC-NIC, MN, NNP, CNS (Clinical Nurse Specialist at CHOC Children's Hospital at Mission Viejo) 
2017: Beth Berry, RN, NICU Nurse (Transport Coordinator, and HRIF Facilitator at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital 
2016: Robin Koeppel, MS, RNC-NIC, CPNP, CNS (Neonatal Clinical Nurse Specialist, and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center)
2015: D. Lisa Bollman, RN, MSN, RNC-NIC, CPHQ (Director of the Community Perinatal Network)
2014: Amy Paradis, RN, NNP (Advanced Practice Neonatal Nurse at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto)