Editor's note: This story was originally published in Health Care Headliners, a magazine meant to introduce the community to the people making a big difference in local health care. The doctors honored in the magazine come from nominations accepted by VEGAS INC.
With more than three decades of experience as a nurse, most of it in emergency rooms and trauma units, Katie Ryan recently settled into a director role at UMC where she oversees more than 200 emergency room nurses and other staff. It’s not something the self-professed adrenaline junkie ever saw herself doing, but she has brought efficiency, better outcomes and better overall care to Southern Nevada’s only Level-1 trauma center and one of the country’s busiest emergency rooms.
“Before I got into this position, I used to talk to my boss and I would say ‘I think I could get this a little more organized, get nurses what they need.’ … The position is always challenging. Emergencies aren’t things you plan for,” she said.
About eighteen months ago, when Ryan took the job, her primary focus was to address staff and patient satisfaction. She started with staff. The unit’s roughly 200 nurses were short-handed and there were a lot of overtime hours worked and plenty of burnout, Ryan noticed.
She created a new scheduling system, allowing for flexibility to take overtime if wanted, instead of having it come across as a mandate. She also made improvements to UMC’s graduate program to allow for better training and mentorship of nurses new to the field who were starting their careers at UMC.
She also addressed patient dissatisfaction, which was largely tied to long wait times. “With a happier staff that’s not working as much, your patient satisfaction scores are going to go up, too,” she said.
And they did — by about 30 percent.
“I’ve been a nurse for 32 years. There has not been a job that I haven’t liked. … But what really excites me is solving problems. … It can get complicated, but I love coming up with solutions that work,” she said.
Ryan’s team has also addressed a major problem facing many emergency rooms in the region and country: treating undocumented immigrants with kidney failure. When she started in her position, the emergency room was regularly treating 150 of these patients three times a week. Reducing these numbers was critical to bringing efficiencies to the unit and reducing emergency room wait times for everyone.
Her team was able to find treatment for 50 percent of the undocumented dialysis patients at valley outpatient centers.
“It’s better for the patient, too (to be in an outpatient facility), instead of having them sit in the emergency room lobby. … We had the support of the physicians who ordered the necessary labs; the financial eligibility department helped to find (ways) these (outpatient facilities) could get reimbursed. … It was a big task. Everybody pitched in,” she said.
Even though wait times are shrinking, Ryan still sees room for improvement.
“We want to compete with the national numbers, where you can see a doctor within 20 minutes and be out of the department within two to 2 1/2 hours. If we could do that, I would be beyond thrilled,” she added.
Above all, Ryan said one of her greatest accomplishments in her new role has been winning over a skeptical staff.
“I think they thought I would get here and leave and wouldn’t deliver on my promises,” she said. “I’m kind of an optimist. I’m driven. I’m always thinking ‘we can do this.’ … I think the staff feels supported. … I think they’re starting to feel more positive.”