SCHOLAR DIRECTORY

I am privileged to have had a long career in both civilian and military nursing. In the private sector I have held many positions in pediatric nursing; clinical, project and operations management; and in information management as a systems analyst, a change manager and a security manager. My military career as a medical-surgical nurse, a flight nurse, flight nurse instructor/evaluator also included management, squadron commander, chief nurse, process improvement facilitator, and several deployments. My work in process improvement allowed me to work in both clinical and non-clinical environments. This work has inspired me to want to work within nursing to promote the concepts of lean thinking, to find ways to look at and redesign nursing work processes to positively impact patient care. After 34 years of military service, I have a great interest in serving the veteran population, heightened only by recent news about veterans’ healthcare. Holding a MSN in Nursing Administration, a post Masters Certificate in Informatics, a Lean Six Sigma Belt, along with leadership education throughout my military career and years of experience provide the foundation of my focus on leadership, mentoring, systems, systems thinking and the value of multidisciplinary health care. As a student in the UTHSCSA DNP Executive Administrative Management Track this background positions me to broaden and deepen my current knowledge. Together, the healthcare team and I can examine the processes, policies and standards affecting healthcare teams, and then rewrite/redesign these processes and other factors to facilitate, not hinder, the coordination and provision of care.