2025 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 9-11, 2025 • Pittsburgh, PA
Award Winner/Nominee Details 2020
Alyson Ward
We are writing today to submit the nomination of Alyson Ward for the 2020 Antonia Brancia Maxon Award for EHDI Excellence. It is our great honor and privilege to do so.
Alyson Ward has been dedicated to the widespread growth of effective EHDI systems in many capacities. Ms. Ward holds an M.S. in Health Education and is an Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) certified Improvement Advisor, and Certified Health Education Specialist. She has worked in public health for over 13 years and been involved in improving public health programs, health promotion, education, research, policy, evaluation, grant development, and grant review from the community to national levels. Currently, she is the Director of Quality Improvement (QI) at the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management, which provides targeted QI assistance to state EHDI programs in an effort to reduce loss to follow-up. She manages multiple improvement advisors and is an advisor herself for many states and U.S. territories. She has also been heavily involved in raising awareness of congenital Cytomegalovirus (cCMV) and served on the board of the National CMV Foundation. Alyson has been a champion of the involvement of parents in the EHDI system in all of the work she has done including the Quality Improvement Initiatives she has facilitated in her role with NCHAM. As the NCHAM liaison for many years for the NTRC's Family Advisory Committee (FAC), she supported this parent-driven group with much finesse through an attitude and mind-set of understanding her role in a support capacity for the FAC as a professional – by following the lead of the parents in this advisory.
Linda A. Hazard Ed.D., CCC-A, Program Director Vermont Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program has this to say about Alyson:
“I have thoroughly enjoyed learning from Alyson and now working in collaboration with her on quality improvement initiatives for Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) Programs. Alyson is one of the most passionate, honest, dependable, and incredibly hard-working individuals I have encountered. She is inspired by challenges, and never intimidated by them. Alyson's knowledge of public health population-based programs, collaboration with EHDI federal partners and knowledge of quality improvement initiatives place her in an incredible position to make a long-term difference in health management, policy or behavioral science programs. She is already a leader in developing and understanding public health policy.”
We know of no one more deserving of this high EHDI award.