2026 Health Excellence Sponsorship Opportunities HERE

The Health Excellence Awards celebrate the people and organizations across Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties who make our community healthier — from frontline clinical staff to behind-the-scenes professionals, community volunteers to local employers. Every year, we bring the entire healthcare community together in one room to recognize the extraordinary work happening all around us. Proceeds benefit the ECMS Foundation and its programs serving our community.

Award Descriptions

Workplace Health Vanguard Award

Open to any employer in Escambia or Santa Rosa County -- healthcare industry or not.

This award recognizes businesses that go beyond standard benefits to genuinely invest in the health and wellbeing of their workforce. We're looking for organizations that offer exceptional health coverage, mental health support, on-site wellness resources, or other meaningful programs that set them apart as an employer -- plus a culture that supports employees giving back to the community.

Ask yourself: Does this workplace make it noticeably easier for employees to be healthy, supported, and engaged? If so, nominate them.

Clinical Excellence Award

For frontline, non-physician clinical staff -- nurses, PAs, medical assistants, therapists, and similar roles.

This award honors the experienced clinicians who show up every day and make patient care exceptional -- not just competent. We're looking for someone whose compassion, skill, and presence meaningfully changes outcomes for patients. This isn't about titles or tenure; it's about the person colleagues point to when they want to show what great care looks like.

Ask yourself: Is there someone on the clinical floor who makes everything better just by being there? Nominate them.

(Nominees should generally have 5 or more years in their role. Early-career nominees may be a stronger fit for the Rising Excellence Award.)

Operations Excellence Award

For frontline, non-physician, non-clinical staff -- administrative, IT, facilities, billing, and similar roles.

Healthcare doesn't run on clinical staff alone. This award recognizes the experienced behind-the-scenes professionals whose work keeps everything moving -- the people who solve problems before patients notice them, who support their colleagues without being asked, and whose absence would genuinely be felt.

Ask yourself: Who makes the whole operation smoother without ever being in the spotlight? That's your nominee.

(Nominees should generally have 5 or more years in their role. Early-career nominees may be a stronger fit for the Rising Excellence Award.)

Rising Excellence Award

For frontline non-physician staff -- clinical or non-clinical -- with fewer than 5 years of experience.

Early career doesn't mean small impact. This award recognizes an emerging healthcare professional who is already making their mark -- someone whose dedication, skill, and potential are impossible to ignore, regardless of how long they've been on the job. Clinical and non-clinical roles are both eligible; what we're looking for is someone who is clearly headed somewhere great.

Ask yourself: Who in their first few years is already standing out in ways that surprise you? Nominate them.

(Replaces the Rising Care Award and Rising Impact Award from prior years.)

Heart of the Community Award

Open to volunteers and staff of area nonprofits and community organizations in Escambia or Santa Rosa County.

This award is for the people doing health work that doesn't show up on a hospital org chart -- the community advocates, nonprofit workers, and volunteers who meet people where they are and fill gaps that formal healthcare can't always reach. If someone is improving the health and wellbeing of our community from the ground up, this award is for them.

Ask yourself: Who in our community is quietly doing the health work that most people never see? Shine a light on them.

The ECMS Pinnacle Award

For actively contributing ECMS member physicians -- currently practicing, teaching, or engaged in medical leadership.

This is our highest honor for a physician in the prime of their contribution to medicine. We're looking for someone whose excellence shows up not just in the exam room, but beyond it -- in the way they lead, advocate, educate, or serve the broader community. This may be a physician who sits on boards, mentors residents, champions causes, or gives their time to organizations that have nothing to do with medicine but everything to do with making our community better.

Ask yourself: Which actively practicing ECMS physician is making our medical community -- and our community at large -- measurably better right now? That's your Pinnacle nominee.

The ECMS Emeritus Award

For fully retired ECMS member physicians -- including posthumous nominations.

Some physicians leave a mark that outlasts their practice -- and in some cases, outlasts their lifetime. This award honors an ECMS member physician who has fully retired from medicine, or who has passed away, and whose career helped define what healthcare looks like in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. We're looking for someone whose patients still speak their name, whose colleagues still cite their influence, and whose contributions -- to medicine, to education, to community -- continue to be felt long after their last day of practice.

Ask yourself: Is there a physician whose work you still feel, even though they are no longer practicing -- or no longer with us? That's your Emeritus nominee.

(For posthumous nominations, please provide contact information for a family member or representative.)

Why the Health Excellence Awards?

When we looked around our community, we noticed something: the larger health systems had their own ways of recognizing outstanding staff — internal awards, celebrations, moments in the spotlight. And they should — they do incredible work. But we wanted to make sure the recognition didn't stop there.

What about the staff member at a small private practice? The volunteer at a nonprofit fighting addiction or supporting mental health in our community? The behind-the-scenes operations professional who keeps everything running but rarely gets the credit? The local business quietly doing exceptional work to keep their employees healthy? These people are just as essential to the health of Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties — and they deserve to be celebrated, too.

The Health Excellence Awards exist to bring the entire healthcare community into the same room to celebrate each other. No silos. No hierarchy. Just a community doing remarkable work, finally getting to see itself reflected back.

We are lucky to have the healthcare community we have here — and we want to shine a light on all of it.

The awards also give us the opportunity to share what the ECMS Foundation is doing in our community through its programs, and to raise the funds that make that work possible through ticket sales and sponsorships.

2025 Health Excellence Award Recipients

Workplace Health Vanguard Award - Nemours Children's Health
Clinical Excellence Award - Julie Smith, MA, CCC-SLP, HCA Florida West Hospital
Rising Care Award - Grace Sims, Vivid Pathology
Operations Excellence Award - Jessi Truett, PhD
Rising Impact Award - Andrea Wright, Baptist Neurosurgery Department
Heart of the Community Award - Carol "CiCi" Sekhon, MD, Gulf Coast Kids House & Sally Bergosh, Health and Hope Clinic
The ECMS Pinnacle Award - Brent Videau, MD, Baptist Heart & Vascular Institute

2024 Health Excellence Award Recipients

Workplace Health Vanguard Award: Navy Federal Credit Union

Healing Hands Award (Clinical): Nikki Walker

Healthcare Harmony Award (Non-Clinical): Hong Potomski

Heart of the Community Award: Stephanie Shepard

The ECMS Pinnacle Award: Robert 'Dr. Bob' Wilson, MD