Off the Chart, a campaign from the Simms/Mann Institute and Foundation rewarding nursing greatness, celebrated its third recognition event on May 29 at the Museum of Tolerance. Forty nurses from Off the Chart’s partner health systems—Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, City of Hope, UCLA Health, and Keck Medicine of USC—were each awarded $10,000 for their excellence in the field. Ten nurses were selected from each partnering health system.
The cohort of this year’s Off the Chart award recipients work in a wide variety of medical branches, from oncology to neonatal care, and occupy various positions including nurse coordinator and nurse practitioner.
Award recipient Laura Alfonso Guerra, an inpatient oncology nurse navigator from UCLA Health, said that receiving the award was “an unexpected honor.”
“To be included amongst so many people that are so passionate and caring about the nursing profession is really such an honor and privilege,” Guerra told the Courier. “It really does inspire you and make you reignited into the nursing profession and the reason why we all started to be nurses in the first place.”
Guerra entered the nursing profession 13 years ago, saying she always liked helping people and nursing just suited her personality. Working in oncology, she noticed the need for patients to receive support as they transition from the hospital to outpatient clinics.
Executive Director of Off the Chart, Rachel Barchie, highlighted additional stories of some of the award recipients, including those who entered the profession through unconventional paths. One nurse left school to become a caregiver, eventually navigating her way through the healthcare system as an immigrant who only spoke Spanish. Another nurse, motivated by his upbringing with his grandparents in Taiwan, entered the field of behavioral health to serve the particular needs of the Chinese American elderly community.
By sharing nurses’ stories and experiences, Off the Chart hopes to “bring increased visibility and attention to nursing expertise,” said Barchie.
The Off the Chart campaign began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the global need for nurses was increasingly becoming more urgent despite a declining workforce. This especially concerned Co-Founder of Off the Chart, Victoria Mann Simms, who experienced the extraordinary care of nurses when her father fell ill nearly 30 years ago.
Through recognizing nurses excelling in their field, Off the Chart aims to shine a light on their often under-recognized work in hopes of reversing the declining workforce trend.
Johnese Spisso, President of UCLA Health and a registered nurse herself, spoke with Mann Simms and Nurse Economist Shawna Butler about a 2025 report from the International Council of Nurses. The report cited a chronic underinvestment in the nursing workforce and thus, investing in nurses would yield a greater return on investment, healthier populations, and a stronger local economy as a result.
Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Off the Chart’s health system partners faced extraordinary challenges this year, particularly when mammoth wildfires devastated parts of Los Angeles in January.
For example, City of Hope had to relocate their infusion centers due to wildfire smoke but continued to provide infusions to cancer patients. Nurse practitioner and award recipient from Keck Medicine of USC, Jacquelyn Kauilani-Paige, continued to provide support to patients, despite losing her home during the wildfire. UCLA Health’s Lindsay Calac, also an award recipient, worked to devise new plans for patient transfers during emergency situations, such as the wildfires. A fraction of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s staff was forced to evacuate or lost their homes.
“It’s been heavy on our minds, and people are still recovering or still homeless,” Cedars-Sinai Chief Nursing Executive, David Marshall, told the Courier. “It makes it a little sweeter this year to have this recognition.”
Despite these challenges, the campaign’s health system partners continued to make their partnership with Off the Chart a priority.
“We’re hoping that people will open their minds and open their thoughts to the importance of nurses,” Mann Simms told the Courier. “We rely on them for lots of stuff and we don’t realize it. They’re very overlooked.”
“Our goal is to move nurses from invisible to invaluable,” said Mann Simms.
