Meet Kristi Bonny: BCEN’s 2025 Distinguished TCRN Award Winner
On April 23, BCEN was proud to announce our 2025 Distinguished TCRN Award winner:
Kristi Bonny, BSN, RN, CPHQ, TCRN, EMT-P
Trauma Clinician
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano
Plano, Texas
Optimizing Outcomes with TQI Across the Trauma Care Continuum
As a Trauma Clinician in Texas Health Plano Hospital’s Level II Trauma Department, and throughout her almost 20-year career, Kristi has been a role model by setting an example of excellence. Responding to trauma activations, as a mentor for other RNs pursuing advanced certification (including her own mentor), and as a contributing member of five hospital-level councils, committees and teams, Kristi leads with professionalism, a strong work ethic, kindness and compassion.
A TCRN since 2018 and a former firefighter/paramedic, Kristi designed and maintains Texas Health Plano’s trauma scorecard and develops and implements trauma quality improvement initiatives to improve the care of trauma patients from pre-hospital through discharge. Her primary focus is on medical staff and overall trauma performance improvement. Among her many contributions, she established the Level I blood cooler, which decreased time to transfuse whole blood from 40 minutes to often less than 10.
Her three-part recipe for certification support is to: (1) Talk about it, as many nurses, both new and tenured, don’t always know which specialty certifications are available. (2) Based on the premise that all nurses care about their patients and want good outcomes, challenge nurses to “Prove it!” as motivation to get or stay certified. (3) Guide nurses through preparing for the exam.
Kristi advocates for nurses and encourages and mentors her peers to take on leadership roles. A clinical excellence task force she chaired tripled the participation in the hospital’s poster fair. Connecting care teams, patients and families, she founded her hospital’s Honor Walk to honor organ donors and initiated her facility’s first Trauma Survivors Day Celebration.
What does this award mean to you?
I am grateful to receive the 2025 Distinguished TCRN award. I credit this recognition to the many leaders and mentors who have poured into me throughout my career.
How has holding the TCRN credential impacted your daily practice and your nursing career path?
The TCRN credential is essential to my role as a trauma clinician because it validates that I have the knowledge and skills to promote better outcomes across the continuum of care for trauma patients. Most of my clinical background is from the emergency department, but the TCRN establishes competency ranging from injury prevention through end-of-life issues. Having the TCRN credential gives me confidence to provide care at the bedside that is evidence-based and supports my behind-the-scenes passion for performance improvement.
What difference has being board certified in trauma nursing made for your patients and their families?
Board certification in trauma nursing has empowered me to extend my impact on trauma patients and their families beyond the bedside. I have worked with multidisciplinary teams to implement practices that prevent hypothermia during resuscitation and decreased time to blood products or anticoagulation reversal. As a TCRN, I am showing my commitment to deliver the highest quality in trauma care.
Texas Health is committed to providing the resources, advocacy and environment for nurses to innovate, collaborate and thrive.
Supporting the career growth of our nurses is another way we are working to improve the health of the people in the communities we serve.
Kristi leads with professionalism, a strong work ethic, kindness and compassion. Within the trauma department, Kristi responds to trauma activations and provides leadership and education from those interactions.
She designed and maintains the trauma scorecard, including mandatory metrics for the American College of Surgeons in additional to hospital-specific metrics. Kristi develops and implements initiatives to improve the care of trauma patients from pre-hospital through discharge at a Level II trauma center. Her primary focus includes medical staff and overall trauma performance improvement.
…She has been a role model throughout her 20-year career working in the adult critical care unit, emergency department, quality department and with trauma patients by setting an example of excellence.”
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