In March, I had the wonderful opportunity to congratulate Carol Ball, senior director of nursing administration at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, as she celebrated her 50th year in nursing there.

I’ve known Carol since I first went to Hopkins Bayview, then known as Baltimore City Hospitals, in 1982. I recognized instantly that she would be a key member of the Johns Hopkins team when City Hospitals joined Johns Hopkins Medicine in 1984—first as the Francis Scott Key Medical Center and then, in 1994, as Hopkins Bayview. That proved to be the case, then and thereafter. In 2011, she became the first nurse in the history of Johns Hopkins Medicine to have an inpatient unit named for her.

Even back in the ’80s, Carol was fostering the philosophy of patient- and family-centered care, which has since become the guiding clinical principle of Johns Hopkins nursing—and, indeed, all of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Reflecting on Carol’s half-century career—and the May arrival of National Nurses Week—prompts me to recall the critical role of nurses in making Johns Hopkins a model of excellence in compassionate patient care. The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Training School of Nursing opened in 1889, a few months after The Johns Hopkins Hospital itself. Its legacy of innovation and excellence is carried on now by our 3,000-member nursing staff at the hospital and by the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, founded in 1984 and consistently ranked as among the finest in the nation.

In 2003, The Johns Hopkins Hospital became the first in Maryland to receive the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s top honor, Magnet designation, in recognition of the highest-quality patient care, teamwork, professionalism and innovation. Only about 7 percent of the nation’s hospitals have nursing staffs who win this once-every-four-years honor, and The Johns Hopkins Hospital has retained the accolade each time it has been bestowed, most recently in 2013.

The reasons are clear. Johns Hopkins nurses have been indispensable partners in our ongoing efforts to lead the way in developing patient- and family-centered care, advancing quality and safety, measuring outcomes to promote continuous improvement, and fostering translational research.

Today, working with colleagues in multidisciplinary teams, Johns Hopkins nurses are implementing The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Bar Code Medication Project to track the accuracy of medication administration; adopting a special protocol to fight catheter-associated urinary tract infections, reducing them significantly in both pediatric and adult patients; and providing recommendations from the perioperative staff that have led to dramatic improvements in infection control.

Clearly, what I said in paying tribute to Carol Ball applies to our entire nursing staff. Our nurses are the faces of Johns Hopkins, our invaluable frontline, hands-on caregivers. We honor them for their strong commitment and passion to serve and to heal.