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UrduThe AMSUS Lifetime Achievement Award is presented annually in February to an individual who has made significant fundamental contributions to federal healthcare. These contributions must have had a lasting impact on federal healthcare, while demonstrating a lifetime commitment to advancing healthcare quality and efficacy. Candidates are also considered role models in healthcare delivery and administration, inspirational to others, and must have had a significant career span.
“I am humbled and honored to receive this award and recognize the many mentors and colleagues who have interacted with and supported me throughout my career,” Romano said.
For more than four decades, Romano has made many tangible and persistent contributions to the military and federal health care. She is recognized as a pioneer in nursing informatics. having helped design and implement one of the first computerized medical information systems in 1976, which provided electronic medical orders and clinical documentation for physicians and nurses in ambulatory and hospital environments. Romano was also the co-architect of the world’s first graduate curriculum in nursing informatics at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, and has served as an advisor to the World Health Organization on the management of manpower and health information in developing countries.
Romano, a retired U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) rear admiral, also served in a number of key leadership roles throughout her career. As the Chief Nursing Officer in the Office of the Surgeon General, she was responsible for the oversight and operations that impacted thousands of commissioned officers, reserve officers, and nurses. She also led emergency response efforts and worked to create the federal health volunteer website and hotline within the days following Hurricane Katrina.
For 34 years, Romano worked at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Center, serving as associate investigator, a clinical research nurse, an educator, and director of nursing communications and recruitment, among various other advisory roles.
As USU Graduate School of Nursing dean, she created an educational model for clinical doctoral education for nurses and provided structure for the nurse scientist program. She raised the school’s standing to the top 5% of U.S. nursing graduate schools, and its CRNA program is #4 in the country. Under her leadership, the USU GSN was designated a National League for Nursing Center of Excellence in nursing education for creating environments that enhance student learning and professional development, and again for sustained achievements in creating environments that promote the pedagogical expertise of faculty.
Romano has authored more than 50 professional published papers and given numerous presentations across the globe, and has held several university faculty appointments.
In addition to the AMSUS Lifetime Achievement Award, Romano has earned many other prestigious accolades, including the Surgeon General’s Medallion and Exemplary Service Award, the PHS Meritorious, Outstanding Service, Commendation, Achievement, and Crisis Response medals. She has also been named the World’s Who’s Who of Women and Who’s Who in American Nursing and recipient of the University of Maryland Illustrious Alumni and Visionary Pioneer awards. She also holds the Order of Military Medical Merit Award.
“Dr. Romano has had a long and distinguished career at USU, within the U.S. Public Health Service and Department of Health and Human Services, as well as military and federal medicine,” said USU President Dr. Jonathan Woodson. “She has been a powerful advocate for nursing, education, and research for nearly four decades. She is a pioneer of translational science and is renowned for her outstanding contributions to creating models for the development and translation of data to support clinical decisions through the use of information technology. We are extraordinarily proud of her accomplishments, and congratulate her on this well-deserved recognition of her lifetime achievements.”
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About the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences: The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, founded by an act of Congress in 1972, is the nation’s federal health sciences university and the academic heart of the Military Health System. USU students are primarily active-duty uniformed officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health Service who receive specialized education in tropical and infectious diseases, TBI and PTSD, disaster response and humanitarian assistance, global health, and acute trauma care. USU also has graduate programs in oral biology, biomedical sciences and public health committed to excellence in research. The University’s research program covers a wide range of areas important to both the military and public health. For more information about USU and its programs, visit www.usuhs.edu.
