Tonka Williams

Tonka Williams, MHA, MSN, RN, CMSRN, serves a one-year term on the AACN Certification Corporation board of directors from July 1, 2024, though June 30, 2025. She completed a three-year term as a director on the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) board of directors from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2024. Williams also held a concurrent one-year term on the AACN Certification Corporation board from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024. She served as treasurer on the AACN board from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023.

Tonka Williams is senior nursing director for practice and innovation at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. She helps ensure high-quality patient care by overseeing a team of nursing practice experts and developing new strategies. She is dedicated to implementing quality improvement initiatives and closing performance gaps. In addition, Williams is a key leader of the Nurse Sensitive Indicators quality team, responsible for developing strategies to enhance performance on various quality measures.

As the nursing practice and innovation leader, she oversees nursing engagement, retention and recognition programs, including The Daisy Awards, Sunshine Award, Beacon of Nursing Excellence and Prism Awards. She also oversees the work toward achieving Magnet status.

Her many volunteer activities with AACN include service on the AACN – AACN Certification Corporation Nominating Committee (July 2019-June 2020); a Beacon award reviewer (2017-2019), podium presenter on “Beacon: Why It Matters” at NTI 2017, reviewer for the Circle of Excellence chapter awards (2018, 2017), and a reviewer on the Evidence-based Poster Abstract Review Panel (2018, 2017). She has been a member of the Greater Richmond Area Chapter since 2012.

Additional affiliations include membership in the DNPs of Color, Virginia Nurses Association, American Nurses Association, American Organization for Nursing Leadership and the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses. Williams is also a member of the Scholarship Committee for the Virginia Organization of Nurse Executives and Leaders.

Among her awards, she was named the Virginia March of Dimes’ Nurse of the Year for Nursing Administration in 2018. She also received the RN Excellence in Transformational Leadership award during VCU Health’s Week of the Nurse event in 2017.