Kareen Ella named Nurse of the Year at Rancho Los Amigos

DOWNEY – Rancho Los Amigos (RLA) National Rehabilitation Center celebrates their more than 650 nurses during Nurses Week May 6th-12. The week-long celebration highlights the invaluable roles nurses play in the recovery process, as Rancho patients work to restore their health, rebuild their lives, and rediscover hope after a life-altering injury or illness.

Each year, the RLA Nursing Department honors one individual as their Nurse of the Year and on Tuesday, that honor was bestowed upon Kareen Ella, an ambulatory care nurse at Rancho Los Amigos.

Ella, BSN, RN, AMB-BC, is a Registered Nurse II in Ambulatory Care at RLA. She began her career at DHS in 2016 at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center before coming to RLA in 2018. Since then, she has been a clinical nurse and nurse leader within our outpatient clinics.

In her practice, Ella demonstrates outstanding clinical skills and a natural ability to connect with patients on a personal level, which allows her to deliver care that is not only impactful, but also tailored to each patient’s needs.

Ella is known amongst her colleagues for her professionalism, integrity, leadership, and unwavering dedication to improving patient experience and staff engagement. Whether she is comforting a fright-ened patient, coordinating complex medical treatments, educating families on healthcare practices, or identifying areas of improvement, she approaches each task with kindness, empathy, and a commit-ment to excellence.

This year, Ella represented RLA at the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing Annual Conference, with a podium presentation on The Nurse-Driven Blood Pressure Medication Titra-tion Clinic that demonstrated Rancho’s successful initiative to improve patient care.

Rancho Los Amigos’ nurses are extraordinary advocates, dedicated care providers, and an integral part of the patient care team at Rancho.