Meet Andalusia Health’s 2024 Monarch Award Nominee, Joan Mills, RN

Joan Mills, RN, is likely Andalusia’s most tenured nurse not only in the Women’s Services area where she works but across the entire hospital. She was hired in April of 1984 and has been with Andalusia Health ever since.

But it wasn’t her four-decade tenure that recently earned her the recognition and distinction of being the hospital’s nominee for the Monarch Caring and Community Award, the highest honor bestowed to caregivers at ScionHealth, Andalusia Health’s parent company. Mills was nominated for her extraordinary leadership and service that would be deemed exemplary in any of ScionHealth’s 92 hospitals and four senior living facilities across 28 states.

“Joan is the heart of the OB (Obstetrics) and Nursery at Andalusia Health,” said Vickie Demers, CEO of Andalusia Health. “Over the past two years, she has stepped up when her department needed her amid a leadership void. She even comes in regularly on her days off to help her teams and patients. She not only put the department schedule together, but she has also kept the department together.”

Mills was also instrumental in the implementation of the baby-friendly initiative that earned the hospital the same-named certification from Baby-Friendly USA. She guided the hospital through the completion of the on-site survey required for the designation. She not only led the department through the process but also educated other facilities on the benefits of being certified. She ensures that Andalusia Health maintains its certification by completing and tracking all measures.

All of the remarkable things Mills has done to help the hospital earn the baby-friendly designation and keep the department together are just the most recent highlights of her more than 40 years of exceptional leadership and service at Andalusia Health.

Mothers and newborns that Joan cares for are in the best hands, and nurses couldn’t work with a better role model, according to Demers, who nominated Mills for the honor.

“I would be willing to bet that most nurses would say that they strive to be like Joan Mills,” she wrote.

“Additionally, there are many mothers in the community who have had the opportunity to have her as their lactation consultant. The patience and kindness she shows new mothers and their newborns is appreciated more than she will ever know.”

On October 3, ScionHealth will select the winners of the 2024 Monarch Awards from the nominees submitted, one per ScionHealth facility. Last year, Andalusia Health’s nominee ‒ Renae Patterson, Director of Environmental Services ‒ was chosen as one of three 2023 Monarch Award recipients.

Congratulations and good luck to Andalusia Health’s 2024 nominee, Joan Mills!