Improving Our Work is Our Work:
Creating a Climate for Improvement
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Featured Presenters:
Cathy Rick, RN, NEA-BC, FACHE, is the Chief Nursing Services Officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Ms. Rick provides leadership and guidance to the VA’s 75,000 nursing personnel, who care for more than 5 million veterans each year. As the Chief Nurse Executive for the VA, Ms. Rick is responsible for administering the VA National Nursing Strategic Plan. National goals include strategies to enhance leadership excellence, evidence-based practice, informatics, career development and workforce, nursing practice transformation, nursing research, advanced practice nursing, and collaboration with academic affiliates and professional organizations. Significant accomplishments and future directions for each of the goals have emerged. Nursing staff members across the 1,300 VA sites have been affected positively by the work related to these strategic goals. These accomplishments provide useful examples for the entire professional nursing community.
Roxanne Rusch, RN, BSN, MPA, has over 30 years of health care clinical and managerial experience. Her administrative and educational profile has been crafted by her various roles as Staff Nurse, Nursing Supervisor, Nurse Internship Program Coordinator, Nurse Educational Coordinator, Flight Nurse, District Peer Review Organization Coordinator, Western Region Joint Commission Accreditation Consultant, Clinical Information Systems Strategist for Decision Support System (DSS) in the Office of Information, Performance Management Consultant in the Office of Quality and Performance, and Clinical Policy Analysis and Forecasting Strategist in the Office of Policy and Planning.
Moderator:
Frank Puga, PhD, is a research scientist and the coordinator for the ISRN’s Research Collaboratives. His primary role is to guide ISRN Research Associates in the conduct of rigorous scientific research using principles grounded in the Science of Team Science (SciTS). Additionally, Dr. Puga is involved in grant development, experimental design, protocol implementation, data analysis and generating scientific reports for the Network Studies.