The Queen’s Health System announced that Cindy Kamikawa, RN, MS, President of Queen’s North Hawaiʻi Community Hospital (QNHCH), will be retiring in January 2024.
Ms. Kamikawa began her healthcare career in 1981 as a staff nurse at The Queen’s Medical Center (QMC). In 2005, she became Chief Nursing Officer and led QMC to become the first and only hospital in Hawaii to achieve Magnet® Recognition, the highest institutional honor for excellence in nursing, from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
Ms. Kamikawa was named president of Queen’s North Hawai‘i Community Hospital in 2016. During her tenure, QNHCH has achieved the following:
- Five-star overall ratings by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Five-Star Quality Rating System, placing it in the top 10% of hospitals nationwide.
- Recognition as a Baby-Friendly designated birth facility by Baby-Friendly USA, Inc., part of a global program sponsored by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund.
- QNHCH’s Kohala Home Healthcare was named a HomeCare Elite® Top Agency and was selected as one of the top Medicare-certified home health agencies in the U.S., based on quality outcomes, best practice implementation, patient experience, quality improvement and consistency, and annual financial performance.
Under Ms. Kamikawa’s leadership, QNHCH has demonstrated its commitment to increasing access to high quality, cost-effective healthcare services and reducing health disparities among Native Hawaiians. She led the expansion, in January 2020, of QNHCH’s Emergency Department from 3,300 square feet to more than 12,000 square feet, now housing 11 all-private treatment rooms and two trauma rooms. The increased capacity has facilitated greater access to emergent healthcare services and specially trained emergency medicine providers for the growing North Hawaii community.
Ms. Kamikawa also has dedicated significant resources to implement the Kahu A Ola project, one of three pilot projects across the health system that treats high-risk diabetic patients while assessing the effectiveness of culturally relevant care for Native Hawaiians.
During the three-year Kahu A Ola pilot, QNHCH provided interdisciplinary team care for 125 high-risk Native Hawaiian patients. The pilot showed proof-of-concept in its ability to increase the engagement and participation of Native Hawaiians while improving the patients’ health outcomes, such as decreases in hemoglobin A1c, body mass index, and blood pressure.
“Cindy has been an invaluable member of the Queen’s ‘ohana, and her contributions will be felt for years to come – not just at Queen’s, but in healthcare across our state,” said Jill Hoggard Green, PhD, RN, President and CEO of The Queen’s Health System. “We are grateful to Cindy for her decades of service, and while we will miss her greatly, we wish her the very best in her well-earned retirement.” Queen’s will begin the process of recruting a new leader for QNHCH who will build on the advances made under Ms. Kamikawa’s leadership.
