Los Alamos Medical Center Names 2025 Mercy Award Winner: Dianne Vandiver

LOS ALAMOS, NM (May 16, 2025) – Los Alamos Medical Center recently announced that Dianne Vandiver, RN, has been recognized as the facility’s 2025 Mercy Award winner. The Mercy Award recognizes one employee from each of Lifepoint Health’s facilities who profoundly touches the lives of others and best represents the spirit and values on which the company was founded. The award is considered the highest honor a Lifepoint employee can receive.

Dianne has been a nurse at Los Alamos Medical Center since March 22, 1971. In her illustrious 53-year career, she has been in Emergency Services, acting as either a staff nurse or Director. All through this tenure, she has been and continues to be a role model for all of our Core Values in her role.

“I cannot say enough about Dianne’s contributions to our facility and community,” said Tracie Stratton, CEO of Los Alamos Medical Center. “She truly epitomizes our mission of making communities healthier and is incredibly deserving of this great honor.”

Patients repeatedly remark on Dianne’s kindness and compassion when she provides them with care.  She receives continuous compliments from patients on how she is “just the kindest person.” The community knows her due to her long tenure at the facility and asks for and about her by name when they come for treatment in the Emergency Department.

Her care and compassion are exemplified in the following story from her Mercy Award nomination:

When one of our patients came into our Emergency Department with a broken hip, he was upset that, as the sole caregiver, his wife was at home with dementia and needed care. Dianne personally set in motion a plan to take care of his wife so the patient could remain hospitalized to receive the care he needed. She commandeered the help of friends and coworkers to take care of his wife. She organized all the volunteers and stayed on to coordinate the hired help for the patient and his wife once he was sent home.

Dianne also takes on the orientation of new nurses in the Emergency Department. Her passion is to help ensure they are successful in their new roles as nurses in our facility. She mentors them about always putting patients first, providing excellent care, and ensuring that they themselves “champion patient care” – as Dianne always does.

Outside of her tremendous clinical career and contributions, Dianne also played a vital part in helping our communities through two major wildfire situations when the facility had to be evacuated.

Each facility winner, including Dianne, will be considered for Lifepoint’s 2025 companywide Mercy Award. The companywide winner will be announced this summer and honored during a ceremony in Nashville, Tenn., in August.