A labor of love: Montgomery's lasting legacy in nursing roots in collaboration and innovation
Lou Ann Montgomery, PhD, MAN, RN, NPD-BC, FAAN, associate chief nursing officer, has served UI Health Care for 47 years, shaping nursing practices along the way through collaboration, innovation, and a patient-centered approach.
After nearly 50 years in nursing, Lou Ann Montgomery’s reflections on her career center not on herself and personal achievements, but on the mentors, teams, and colleagues who made the work worthwhile. For her, leadership has never been about individual success. It’s about leaving the profession and its people better than she found them.
Montgomery has always been a steadfast believer in the power of collaboration. From championing patient-centric and family-centered practices to guiding future nurses through a global pandemic, her greatest accomplishments have been grounded in teamwork and a sense of shared purpose.
“Health care is a team sport,” says Montgomery. “Of all the achievements I have been a part of in my career, very few were my own doing. It took a team, and I've been blessed to work with extremely talented colleagues over the years at UI Health Care.”
A history of patient-first care
That same spirit of collaboration and sense of purpose has shaped Montgomery’s approach to care throughout her career. As both a nurse and a leader, she believes deeply in prioritizing patients. She works to see each situation through the eyes of those receiving care, a perspective shaped not only by her professional experience, but by her personal roles as a patient, spouse, mother, and grandmother.
Her early commitment to patient-first care, for example, led her to challenge the norms of the time. In the 1980s, Montgomery began studying sibling visitation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (then a rare practice in hospitals) recognizing its importance in supporting both patients and families.
“Sibling visits were not allowed at that time,” she recalls. “But kids are smart – they know their brother or sister is sick, and they want to know more. Research I did as part of my master’s and doctoral studies helped provide more evidence to support that it was beneficial and important for siblings to be able to visit and hear directly what was happening to their sister or brother.”
Montgomery’s landmark research laid the foundation for a family support and sibling visitation program that eventually expanded to include adult critical care areas with other nursing colleagues. These efforts helped drive meaningful changes in adult and pediatric critical care practices through numerous publications in nursing literature.
A timely solution with lasting impact
Montgomery’s ability to be both innovative and flexible has guided her through countless challenges. She believes the best nurses are those who stay focused on patient care while finding creative solutions when roadblocks arise.
Reflecting on her own career, she puts it simply: “I don't always have the ideal playing cards in front of me, but I just figure out how to play the game with the cards I've been dealt.”
That mindset proved especially critical during one of the most disruptive times in modern health care. When the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to derail nursing education across the country, Montgomery sprang into action, determined to ensure UI College of Nursing and other eastern Iowa nursing students could stay on track.
After hearing that nursing students might be forced to pause their clinicals, she led efforts to have them be designated as essential workers. Montgomery’s approach not only ensured students could continue learning and caring for patients, but it also helped 129 nursing students graduate on time and enter the workforce when they were needed most.
Nurturing growth and the path ahead
As someone who credits much of her success to those she’s worked alongside, Montgomery believes in paying it forward. When asked what advice she would give to others, she doesn’t hesitate to suggest that finding a mentor is a great way to learn, share, and advance the practice of nursing.
Montgomery speaks with deep appreciation for two of her own mentors during her career at UI Health Care, including UI College of Nursing professor emeritus and former acting dean Martha Craft-Rosenberg, PhD, RN, FAAN, and former director of nursing Sally Mathis Hartwig, MA, RN, who were both instrumental in supporting her research and path to leadership.
“History and experience matter,” she says. “Sally represented nursing during a time when women weren’t prominent leaders here. I admire and respect her groundwork in professional governance, and I have taken it as my personal mission to ensure it stays vibrant.”
While she honors those who came before her, Montgomery is just as passionate about those who will follow. Montgomery has inspired countless new nurses to pursue advanced opportunities, all while continuing to elevate the standards of nursing practicing at UI Health Care.
Her vision for innovation and collaboration led to the creation of the UI Nursing Collaboratory, a partnership between the UI College of Nursing and UI Health Care’s Department of Nursing to share knowledge, generate ideas, and improve both patient outcomes and nursing practice.
She also played a pivotal role in UI Health Care’s journey to become the first hospital in Iowa to achieve Magnet Recognition® in 2004, and to be re-designated four times in the years since (2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023). Survey exemplars achieved in the most recent designation are a reflection of continued excellence under her guidance.
A long standing labor of love
As she prepares to retire in September, Montgomery leaves behind a 47-year legacy defined by resilience, innovation, and compassion.
“It has not been a labor. It has been a labor of love, really,” she says.
In recognition of her extraordinary contributions, Montgomery was recently honored with the DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award, reserved for nurses whose careers have advanced both patient care and the nursing profession itself. This comes on the heels of her 2021 induction as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, the profession’s highest distinction.
“UI Health Care was the perfect place for me to carry out my career,” reflects Montgomery. “I’ve been very lucky to have spent nearly 47 years working with the best, and most talented colleagues anywhere.”
