Lone Tree nursing director wins DAISY Award for leadership

A top nursing honor at HCA HealthONE Sky Ridge has spotlighted the work that keeps Lone Tree’s operating rooms moving: Lindsay Mallon, the hospital’s nursing director of perioperative services, was named the DAISY Award Leader of the Year, recognizing the kind of leadership that can shape staffing stability, patient flow and surgical access behind the scenes.

Mallon oversees the departments that support surgery from pre-admission testing through recovery, coordinating with surgeons, their offices and nursing staff so cases move safely and efficiently. That role matters in a hospital where timing, communication and dependable staffing can affect everything from the first pre-op check to the final post-op handoff. Mallon has described health care as a team sport, a fitting description for a job built on constant collaboration between bedside nurses, operating-room staff and administrative teams.

The DAISY Foundation’s nurse leader award is designed to recognize leaders who build trust, show compassion and mutual respect, support professional development, respond quickly, solve problems and advocate for their teams. Nominations typically come from staff members and are reviewed through a blinded process, which means the honor reflects how a leader is viewed by the people working alongside them, not just by executives. The foundation says the award is used across health systems, clinics, long-term care facilities, surgery centers and schools of nursing, and that it is intended to support nurse recruitment, retention and resilience, all of which remain pressing issues across health care.

For Lone Tree and Douglas County, the recognition also points to the local importance of Sky Ridge itself. The City of Lone Tree lists HCA HealthONE Sky Ridge as a major employer with about 3,000 employees and says the hospital is a CMS 5-star hospital and one of Healthgrades’ America’s 100 best hospitals. In a city known for major employment centers and health-care services, that makes the work of a perioperative director more than an internal management issue. It is part of how one of the area’s biggest health-care institutions keeps surgeries available and the workforce stable.

A DAISY honoree page for Mallon included a patient account saying she advocated for pain control and made the patient feel part of the treatment plan, a reminder that the same leadership that helps organize a surgical unit also shapes a patient’s experience of care.