Finalists named for 2026 Health Minister's Award for Nursing Trailblazers

The Australian College of Nursing (ACN) has named Catherine Baring MACN, Professor Andrea Driscoll MACN RN NP and Sigrid Pitkin MACN as the three finalists of the 2026 Health Minister’s Award for Nursing Trailblazers.

With innovations spanning cardiac care, allergy treatment and paediatric vascular access, ACN said each demonstrates how advanced nursing practice can close gaps in access, improve safety and reduce costs across the health system.

“These finalists show the potential of nurses to design better ways of delivering care,” said Adjunct Professor Kathryn Zeitz FACN, ACN Chief Executive Officer. “Each of these innovations is expanding access, lifting the quality of care, and reshaping how services are delivered — particularly for people in rural and regional Australia.”

Baring is from the Fast Advice and Access for Intravenous Routes with Imaging (FAAIRI) Service, a nurse-led vascular access service for children with difficult intravenous access in a tertiary paediatric hospital; Driscoll is part of an integrated, nurse practitioner-led model delivering specialist heart failure care across inpatient, outpatient, and virtual settings; and Pitkin, a nurse practitioner-led model delivering oral immunotherapy for food allergies in a regional primary care setting.

With nominations assessed by an expert panel of nurse leaders against criteria including context and challenge, innovation and nurse-led approach, contribution to nursing and the community, outcomes and evidence of impact, cost-effectiveness, and scale and adaptability, the recipient will be announced by Australia’s Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, on 5 August.

Professor Michelle Barakat-Johnson was named the winner of the 2025 Health Minister’s Award for Nursing. Barakat-Johnson is part of the RPA Virtual Hospital Wound Care Command Centre, a pioneering service that connects clinicians (including aged-care workers) directly with wound care specialists, no matter where they are. You can read about the command centre, in Barakat-Johnson’s words, here.

Image source: Australian College of Nursing