IAANMP: Meet the members

Lisa Egan, RANP Paediatric Respiratory, MRHP

Lisa Egan is a Registered ANP in Paediatric Respiratory Care at Midland Regional Hospital (MRH), Portlaoise. She began her advanced practice journey in 2017 as a Candidate ANP and completed a Master of Science in Advanced Nurse Practice in 2019. Following her registration, Lisa established her role as a RANP in Paediatric Respiratory Care, with a strong focus on allergy management integrated into her practice. She is deeply committed to improving the care of infants and children living with allergic conditions, including eczema, food allergy, allergic rhinitis, and asthma.

Lisa dedicates significant time to educating children and their families on how to live well with allergic conditions. She also enjoys educating her peers, emphasising the importance of mastering the fundamentals of asthma and allergy management.

Lisa has received national recognition for her contributions to paediatric respiratory and allergy care. She won the Best Poster Prize for the Food Challenge Service at the Irish Paediatric Association in December 2019, and again at the Trinity College Dublin International Nursing Conference in March 2022, for her presentation on the impact of grass sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) on the quality of life of children with asthma and allergic rhinitis. She was also awarded an educational bursary from the Anáil Respiratory Nurses Organisation, which supported the development of educational video tools for secondary caregivers of children with asthma and allergies.

These resources, launched in 2023, are now available on YouTube and the DMHG website. More recently, the allergy and respiratory specialist team at MRH received a highly commended award at the Irish Healthcare Awards 2023 for their project ‘Educating children and their caregivers to self-manage asthma and allergies in the hospital and community’ in the Nursing and Midwifery Project of the Year category.

Lisa has also completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Allergy and Clinical Immunology at University College Cork and is an active member of several nursing and multidisciplinary subgroups working to ensure consistency of care across tertiary, secondary, and primary healthcare services. She is also the Paediatric Educational Committee Officer for Anáil, the Respiratory Nurses of Ireland group.

Lisa and the team at MRH continue to advance care for children with atopic conditions. In July 2025, they hosted Ireland’s first national asthma camp, an innovative programme that used play-based learning to teach children and their families how to manage asthma.

The camp was an outstanding success, and the valuable data gathered is now being prepared for publication by Lisa and the allergy and respiratory team. Their aim is to influence future approaches to asthma and allergy education, demonstrating that play-based teaching not only empowers children, but also equips them with lifelong self-management skills, ultimately enhancing their quality of life.

Lisa has contributed to ongoing research at MRH and in collaboration with University College Cork. Two of her co-authored papers are currently awaiting publication: ‘The effect of a specialist nurse-led oral food challenge and penicillin de-labelling service in a secondary care hospital in Ireland’ and ‘Home-based introduction of egg protein in paediatric IgE-mediated egg allergy: A review of treatment strategy 2011-2021’.

This work has also been presented by Lisa and the MRHP team at the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Conference in Valencia, Spain, and at the Irish Thoracic Society meeting in Derry in 2024.