The Queen’s Health Systems Invests $1M in the UH Mānoa’s School of Nursing & Dental Hygiene

The Queen’s Health Systems, one of Hawai‘i’s largest clinical training sites, has donated $1 million to the University of Hawai‘i to establish The Queen’s Health Systems Endowed Professorship. This professorship will be awarded to the next permanent dean of UH Mānoa’s nationally-ranked School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene (SONDH) and will provide enhanced resources to support emerging priorities for the nursing program.

“We are incredibly grateful to The Queen’s Health Systems for their remarkable generosity and the strategic impact we will see from this contribution,” said David Lassner, President of the University of Hawai‘i. “This gift will help us attract a worthy successor to retiring Dean Mary Boland and will empower future deans to build upon our current momentum as we embrace our responsibility to educate the next generations of Hawaiʻi nurses.”

The contribution, given as part of QHS’s strong commitment to education, research and innovation, is part of its longer-term strategy to ensure that Hawaiʻi’s next generation of health care leaders is educated here in the state and then chooses to remain in Hawaiʻi to practice. Its $1 million endowed professorship builds upon more than 10 years of a highly productive academic-practice collaboration that includes the UH Translational Health Science Simulation Center, of which The Queen’s Medical Center is a founding partner; The Queen’s Medical Center – UHM Nursing Research Partnership; and the ʻIKE AO PONO program supporting the enrollment and graduation of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island students and students from indigenous and underrepresented populations through scholarships that Queen’s provides.

“We are proud of our longstanding collaboration with the University of Hawaiʻi and are honored to support its exceptional health care programs,” said Jill Hoggard Green, PhD, RN, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Queen’s Health Systems. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration as we strive to educate and train the most highly-qualified health care workforce, engage the next generation of health care professionals, and improve the health and well-being of the people of Hawai‘i.”

SONDH’s current dean, Dr. Mary G. Boland, will be retiring at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year, and the next permanent dean will be titled “Dean and The Queen’s Health Systems Professor.”

“UH Mānoa Nursing and The Queen’s Health Systems have collaborated on education, service and scholarship for many years,” said Mary G. Boland, DrPH, RN, FAAN, Dean and Professor at the UH School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene. “This public recognition of the deepening relationship between our organizations celebrates our shared commitment to nursing, quality health care and improving our state communities. We are most grateful!”

The Queen’s Health Systems (QHS) is a nonprofit corporation established in 1985 to provide expanded health care capabilities to the people of Hawai‘i and the Pacific Basin. It is Hawai‘i’s preeminent family of health care-related companies and has more than 8,000 employees and more than 1,500 affiliated physicians and providers in its statewide network. QHS consists of The Queen’s Medical Center (Hawai‘i’s oldest hospital founded in 1859), The Queen’s Medical Center – West O‘ahu, Molokai General Hospital, Queen’s North Hawai‘i Community Hospital, The Queen’s Health Care Centers, Queen’s Island Urgent Care, Queen Emma Land Company, Queen’s Development Corporation, Queen’s Insurance Exchange, Queen’s Clinically Integrated Physician Network, and Queen’s ‘Akoakoa, and has ownership interests in CareResource Hawai‘i, Hamamatsu/Queen’s PET Imaging Center, Diagnostic Laboratory Services and EmPower Health.

UH Mānoa Nursing, the Nursing Capital of the Pacific, is the leader in nursing education and research in Hawai‘i with outreach to Asia and the Pacific Basin. It supports the mission of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa: to provide an innovative, caring and multicultural environment in which faculty, students and staff work together to generate and transmit knowledge, wisdom, and values to promote quality of life and health for present and future generations. The school offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs. To reflect Hawai‘i’s unique cultural diversity and heritage, UH Mānoa Nursing is committed to increasing the representation of Native Hawaiian and other underserved people in all nursing programs. www.nursing.hawaii.edu