Donna Torrisi, director of RHD’s Family Practice & Counseling Network, honored with Loretta C. Ford Lifetime Achievement Award
May 1, 2017
Donna Torrisi, director of RHD’s Family Practice and Counseling Network, has been honored with the 2017 Loretta C. Ford Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Nurse Practitioner Symposium.
“I am very touched and honored at having been chosen for this prestigious award,” Torrisi said. “Loretta C. Ford founded the Nurse Practitioner profession in the 1960s in Colorado and I feel proud for any association with her. I have been most fortunate to have such a rewarding and exciting career and an opportunity to develop, with the help and support of many others, a holistic model of health care for an underserved population. I am grateful to my staff, to my patients and to RHD for allowing me to do my thing.”
The annual award recognizes the accomplishments of an individual who has demonstrated longevity, integrity, professional achievement and advocacy in advanced practice nursing on a national level. Watch video of the award presentation here:
A pioneer in integrating primary and behavioral health services, Torrisi leads the largest nurse-managed health care network in the country. FPCN treats more than 22,000 patients each year at five sites across Pennsylvania. A network of health centers providing primary care, behavioral health education, prenatal care, family planning services, dental care, community outreach, and advocacy, FPCN’s high-quality care improves the health status of underserved, uninsured and vulnerable people and has earned national recognition as a “best practices” model of health care delivery.
A graduate of Villanova University and the University of Pennsylvania, Torrisi was a key leader in Pennsylvania in an effort that resulted in legislative change, redefining “primary care provider” to include nurse practitioners. She is a founding member and first chairperson of the National Nursing Centers Consortium, co-wrote the book“ Community and Nurse Managed Health Centers, Getting them Started and Keeping them Going,” published in May 2005. A graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellowship Program, Torrisi was recently designated an Edge Runner with the American Academy of Nursing and in 2012 was inducted as a Fellow into the American Academy of Nursing.
The Loretta C. Ford Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony will take place on July 21 in Keystone, Colorado.