It’s two days post-Healthcare Design Expo & Conference as I write this. It was a great show in my completely unbiased opinion—we’ll tell you all about it in our show review coverage in the January/February 2016 issue. And as the event buzz finally starts to wear off, I can start to focus on the future.

I started to do so from the stage, actually, during our Healthcare Design Awards Luncheon. As I presented awards to last year’s HCD 10 winners, each one spoke for a few moments, and invariably, they all mentioned the team aspect of healthcare design. Some seemed almost embarrassed to be singled out, because of course no one person can legitimately take all the credit for a project’s (or year’s) success.

But winners, I say to you, own it! That’s kind of the whole point of these awards. The fact that this industry relies so much on input and expertise from a wide variety of professionals is a given; you’re not getting an award because anyone thinks you did it all by yourself. But by taking the time to tease out individual contributions, we can honor the whole process. We can say: “See? This is why the clinician is necessary to design conversations. This is the way research can be leveraged to improve staff workflow. This is how a superintendent keeps a billion-dollar project on schedule.” And who wins because of all these efforts? The patient. Which is to say, everyone wins, with better environments for better care and better outcomes.

So as I hovered behind each winner during their words to the audience, this essay started forming in my mind, because the call for nominations for the next round of HCD 10 honorees will begin in March. Your nominations—and the way you choose to define an individual’s worth to any project or to the industry at large—allow us to tell this fuller story. Whether you call out leadership skills, creative thinking, organizational prowess, or something else, we want to hear about individuals’ contributions to our field during the past year. So give it some thought, and keep an eye out for the official call for nominations coming soon. Do it for the team.