A nurse since 1981, Norine Watson, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, has worked in many facets of nursing from a direct care nurse to her current role as the senior director of nursing excellence with Nemours Children’s Health, Delaware Valley in Wilmington, Delaware. The focus of her nursing roles for the past several years has been advancing, promoting, and building empowerment structures for nurses. She advises the Nursing Shared Governance Congress, facilitates the Nursing Advancement Review board, and led the efforts that resulted in Nemours being designated as a Magnet hospital in November 2012 and redesignated in 2017.
In 2016 Norine was a member of the research team at Nemours for an organizational study, Nurse Reported Experience with Shared Governance, using the Index of Professional Nursing Governance, developed by Robert Hess, PhD, RN, FAAN. Also in 2016 Norine partnered with Jane Mericle, DNP, MLC-BC and Elizabeth Johnson-Salerno, MSN, RN, NE-BC to provide a podium presentation, Creating a Successful Nurse Executive Transition Through Investing in Leadership and Creating Strategy, at the American Organization of Nursing Executives’ annual meeting.
Norine has been recognized by the University of Delaware with the Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement in 2014 and as a University of Delaware Nursing 50 Stars honoree in 2016. In 2013, she received the University of Delaware, School of Nursing Outstanding Alumni Award. Also in 2013 she received the Delaware Excellence in Nursing Practice Award – Executive Nurse Leader, and was Nurse.com’s regional winner for Advancing & Leading the Profession.
Norine graduated with an associate’s degree from Delaware Technical and Community College, and then earned a BSN and an MSN from the University of Delaware, in Newark, Delaware. In 2019 she completed a doctor of nursing practice, executive leadership at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She is board certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center in the specialty of Nurse Executive Advanced.
Click the photo below to hear Norine talk about shared governance.