Abigail A. Valbuena
Milpitas,CA
Summary
Performance driven, transformational clinical nurse leader who is service excellence focused and possesses innovative and strategic thinking. Highly dynamic and extremely motivated with a constant focus on clinical outcomes, efficient resource utilization and patient, staff, and physician satisfaction. Focused on building a culture of accountability and long-term relationships with all levels of hospital staff and clients. Armed with strong leadership and decision-making skills, and the ability to cultivate effective relationships with all team members to consistently achieve mission-critical goals. Innovator in improving workflow and increasing productivity of staff. Achieved significant results in aligning goals between organization, management team and staff through understanding the needs of each member of the team. Supports the promotion of organizational growth and staff development. Maintenance of clinical competencies and bedside skills to assist during high patient census and work/staff shortage situations in all positions.
Professional nurse specializing in clinic management. Proven ability to lead and collaborate with healthcare teams to enhance patient care standards and operational efficiency. Strong background in staff training, patient care coordination, and regulatory compliance. Known for adaptability, reliability, and focus on achieving measurable results in dynamic environments.
Experienced with clinical management and patient care coordination, ensuring smooth operations and high-quality outcomes. Utilizes leadership and communication skills to foster teamwork and enhance staff performance. Track record of implementing effective healthcare strategies to optimize patient care and operational efficiency.
Innovative technology professional with several years of diverse experience. Skilled in enhancing systems and aligning technical solutions with business objectives. Proven success in leading projects from start to finish and contributing to organizational growth and success.
Thorough team contributor with strong organizational capabilities. Experienced in handling numerous projects at once while ensuring accuracy. Effective at prioritizing tasks and meeting deadlines.
Overview
24
24
years of professional experience
Work History
Clinic Nurse Manager – Dialysis In-Center
Satellite Healthcare
08.2022 - Current
- Manage day to day clinical operations including staffing, quality improvement, fiscal management and service excellence.
- Assurance of quality of care by advocating, promoting, and interpreting hospital and nursing standards of care.
- Enforcing adherence to nursing practice act and other governing agency regulations and measuring health outcomes against standards.
- Monitor significant improvements in metrics, patient experience, core staffing, quality dashboard - keeping staff informed and involved on accomplishments and opportunities.
- Supervises daily unit operations including department and employee safety programs, risk managements.
- Collaborate patient care with interdisciplinary team to achieve optimal patient outcomes.
- A 24-chair treatment clinic owned by Satellite Healthcare specializing on dialysis treatment.
Interim Assistant Nurse Manager – Medical- Surgical Telemetry
Emerald Health Services - Traveling Agency
02.2021 - 08.2022
- Supervise and manage a 24-bed medical-surgical telemetry unit day to day clinical operations including staffing, quality improvement, fiscal management, service excellence.
- Assurance of quality of care by advocating, promoting, and interpreting hospital and nursing standards of care.
- Enforcing adherence to nursing practice act and other governing agency regulations and measuring health outcomes against standards.
- Monitor significant improvements in metrics, patient experience, core staffing, quality dashboard - keeping staff informed and involved on accomplishments and opportunities.
- Supervises daily unit operations including department and employee safety programs, risk managements.
- Works with multidisciplinary team to achieve optimal patient outcomes.
- 153 bed acute care hospital owned by Kaiser Foundation Hospital.
Director – Emergency and Critical Care Services
Watsonville Community Hospital
04.2020 - 12.2020
- Director of an 18-bed Emergency Department with approximately 40,000 visits annually and a 10-bed Intensive Care Unit.
- Clinical and operational leader for 65 FTE’s including Registered Nurses, ED Techs and EMS Base Nurse Liaison.
- Maintained nursing operations by initiating, coordinating and enforcing program, operational, and personnel policies and procedures.
- Assurance of quality of care by developing and interpreting hospital and nursing standards of care.
- Enforcing adherence to nursing practice act and other governing agency regulations and measuring health outcomes against standards.
- Delivered significant improvements in throughput metrics, patient experience, core staffing, quality dashboard and culture shift to a transforming culture.
- Implemented shared governance and created different committee to enhance skills of staff.
- Hired ED and CCU staff to fill the gaps that has been vacated for 6 months.
- Redesign ED and CCU quality dashboard based on best practices.
- Decreased length of stay for low acuity and level 3 by improving the front end process.
- Created a throughput committee involving the staff and physicians to work on ED workflow.
- Implemented Telehealth intensivist and created workflow to improve the communication between different physician departments.
- Decreased missed meal and missed breaks from 4.5 FTE to 3.0 FTE.
- Implemented monitoring of sick calls and improved coverage/gaps in schedule.
- Established an enhanced workflow for COVID and non-COVID patients to decrease overcrowding in the emergency department improving discharge length of stay from 220 minutes to 155 minutes.
- Hired new employees to reduced open vacancies from 10.2 FTE to 3.6 FTE on night shift on both Emergency and Critical Care Units.
- Reorganized Code Blue Committee by involving staff and ancillary departments by using evidence based practice – updated policy procedures, forms and evaluation.
- Established Emergency Pediatric Committee to serve the community to provide care for pediatric population.
- 106 bed for-profit acute care hospital owned by Watsonville Hospital Corporation.
- Led strategic initiatives to enhance patient care and operational efficiency across departments.
- Developed and implemented policies that improved regulatory compliance and quality standards.
Director – Emergency Services
Good Samaritan Hospital
09.2017 - 04.2020
- Director of a 36-bed emergency department with approximately 70,000 visits annually and gross revenues over $40M.
- Clinical and operational leader for 130 direct reports.
- Maintained nursing operations by initiating, coordinating and enforcing program, operational, and personnel policies and procedures.
- Assurance of quality of care by developing and interpreting hospital and nursing standards of care.
- Enforcing adherence to nursing practice act and other governing agency regulations and measuring health outcomes against standards.
- Delivered significant improvements in throughput metrics, patient experience, core staffing, quality dashboard and culture shift to a transforming culture.
- Workforce: 110 FTE direct reports: registered nurses, ED techs, sepsis coordinator and transport service.
- Built, staffed and opened a $40M ED Expansion from 22 bed to 36 beds.
- Developed and implemented training program for nurses transitioning from inpatient to emergency services.
- Chair on ED Operations Committee with other healthcare team leaders to improve ED metric trends, volume and patient experience.
- Low Acuity Length of stay from 90 minutes to 50 minutes.
- Overall Discharge Length of stay from 174 minutes to 146 minutes.
- ER volume growth of 5.1%.
- Patient experience top box from 59% 1Q18 to 65% 4Q18.
- Sepsis Program: redesign and developed the hospital sepsis program and improved compliance.
- 3HR Bundle Compliance: 74% 1Q18 to 85% 4Q18.
- Antibiotic Administration < 60 minutes: 49% 1Q18 to 65% 4Q18.
- Rank as one of the noncompliant on sepsis over 200 hospitals in HCA beginning of 2018 and ended the year of 2018 as ten 10 hospitals for compliance in sepsis.
- Increased employee engagement from 40% to 80% through shared governance model involving staff with planning and collaborate improvement plans with them.
- Improved productivity target from 3.5 to 2.35 without reduction of workforce and increased staffing workforce during peak hours and peak days.
- Decreased missed meal and missed break from 4.0 FTE to 2.0 FTE.
- Initiated on boarding process and expectation for new grads and new hire with a clear plan and involvement of the preceptor committee.
- Ongoing collaboration with emergency department physicians and intradepartmental leadership team members to improve turnaround time on laboratory order to verified from 110 minutes to 90 minutes and CT order to verified from 128 minutes to 98 minutes.
- Facilitated Foley Free ED and reduced utilization from 2.0 % to 0.25%.
- 2019 Joint Commission Survey with no major findings in the emergency department.
- 2019 Joint Commission Certification for Sepsis with no deficiencies.
- 335-bed for profit acute care hospital, owned by HCA.
- Led strategic initiatives to enhance patient care and operational efficiency.
- Developed and implemented policies to ensure compliance with healthcare regulations.
- Directed cross-functional teams to improve service delivery and patient satisfaction.
Interim Medical-Surgical Telemetry Manager
Good Samaritan Hospital
05.2016 - 08.2017
- Clinical and operational leader for an 80 direct reports and bariatric coordinators delivering care to a 25 bed medical-surgical telemetry unit.
- Maintained nursing operations by initiating, coordinating and enforcing program, operational, and personnel policies and procedures.
- Assurance of quality of care by developing and interpreting hospital and nursing standards of care.
- Enforcing adherence to nursing practice act and other governing agency regulations and measuring health outcomes against standards.
- Delivered significant improvements in throughput metrics, patient experience, core staffing, quality dashboard and culture shift to a transforming culture.
- Reorganized and collaborate multidisciplinary team with physicians, case managers and nurses to address length of stay of patient with significant improvement from 10 days to 8 days.
- Demonstrated improved employee satisfaction and moral through corporate-wide survey results.
- Demonstrated improved patient experience evidenced by satisfaction results top box from 60.4 3Q16 to 76.9 3Q17.
- Improved pain documentation compliance from 60% to 98% through by reeducation engaging the staff to participate in audits and peer education.
- Maintained no falls in the department below
- Decreased missed breaks and missed meals utilization from 4.5 FTE to 1.5 FTE.
Clinical Nurse Manager - Emergency Department
O’Connor Hospital
03.2014 - 04.2015
- Clinical and operational leader for a 110 direct reports delivering care to a 23bed emergency department with annual visits of 65,000.
- Maintained nursing operations by initiating, coordinating and enforcing program, operational, and personnel policies and procedures.
- Assurance of quality of care by developing and interpreting hospital and nursing standards of care.
- Enforcing adherence to nursing practice act and other governing agency regulations and measuring health outcomes against standards.
- Delivered significant improvements in throughput metrics, patient experience, core staffing, quality dashboard and culture shift to a transforming culture.
- Maintain door to doc time < 20 minutes.
- Reported to the Vice President of Operations.
- Supervised registered nurses, communication technicians, and emergency room technicians.
- Achieves financial objectives by preparing an annual budget; scheduling expenditures; analyzing variances; initiating corrective actions.
- Ensure and maintain operation of medical and administrative equipment.
- Improved productivity budget: paid FTE variance from -8.2% to 3.6%.
- Improved flow management by implementing change in the front end and back end processes partnering with Studer group resulting to: Decrease average Discharge LOS from 158 to 138 minutes.
- Decreased average Admission LOS from 357 to 313 minutes.
- Improved triage process resulting to decrease in triage time from 18 to 8 minutes.
- Decreased in left without being seen rate to 1%.
- Improved patient satisfaction overall rating score from 81.8% to 86.7%.
- Collaborate with inpatient leaders to decreased admission length of stay by 20 minutes.
- Led nursing staff in implementing evidence-based practices to enhance patient care standards.
- Developed and managed operational protocols to improve workflow efficiency within the clinical unit.
Assistant Nurse Manager - Emergency Department
O’Connor Hospital
02.2013 - 02.2014
- Managed 23 bed Emergency Department and four chairs Rapid Medical Examination (RME) unit, with 73 FTE direct reports.
- Supervised daily operations of emergency department, ensuring efficient patient flow and care delivery.
- Developed staff training programs to enhance clinical skills and improve team performance.
- Implemented quality assurance protocols, enhancing adherence to safety standards in patient care.
- Coordinated interdisciplinary meetings to address departmental challenges and improve service delivery.
- Led initiatives to optimize resource allocation, reducing wait times for patients in critical care.
- Mentored nursing staff on best practices, fostering a culture of continuous learning and development.
- Analyzed patient feedback data to identify areas for improvement in service quality and satisfaction.
Charge Nurse – Emergency Department
O’Connor Hospital
06.2012 - 01.2013
- Establishes and implements patient care protocol ensuring all regulations are met.
- Maintains the structure and staffing of the ED to address the needs of the patients adequately.
- Evaluate clinical care service and all administrative operations and activities during the shift.
- Advocate for the patient in ED.
- Involved in councils to improve team building and competency.
Assistant Director of Nursing (Education)
Bay Area College of Nursing
07.2010 - 05.2012
- Managed three nursing located in the Bay Area with 30 FTE direct reports.
- Supervised clinical instructor and office assistants.
- Accountable for overseeing, planning and implementation of the nursing curriculum that meet the Board of Nursing requirements for Licensed Vocational Nursing.
- Recertified nursing curriculum with the updated requirements by the Board of Nursing.
- Restructured and hired highly competent nursing instructors.
- Improved relationships with clinical sites and added more clinical rotations for students.
- Developed a clinical review program for graduating students with passing rate of 85%.
Charge Nurse – Emergency Department
O’Connor Hospital
06.2002 - 06.2010
- Establishes and implements patient care protocol ensuring all regulations are met.
- Maintains the structure and staffing of the ED to address the needs of the patients adequately.
- Evaluate clinical care service and all administrative operations and activities during the shift.
Education
Master of Science - Nursing Administration and Business Management
Aspen University
Denver, Colorado01.2018
Bachelor of Science - Nursing
Saint Louis University
Philippines01.1992
Skills
- Clinical leadership
- Compassionate and excellent communication
- Healthcare regulations compliance
- Clinical documentation
- Staff training and development
- Nursing staff supervision
- Patient charting
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Problem-solving
- Proficient and knowledgeable in different electronic health record system
- Emergency care
- Bed Managment
Accomplishments
- 2020, Increased intensivist coverage in CCU by utilizing Telehealth Services.
- 2020, Updated policies and procedures for Emergency and Critical Care based on evidenced based practices.
- 2020, Introduced new equipment and supplies to improve quality care such as temp probes, pure wick system.
- 2020, Code Blue Committee Chair.
- 2019, Recertification of Sepsis Program for the hospital with no deficiencies.
- 2019, Successful Join Commission Certification with no findings in Emergency Services.
- 2017, Successful Certification on Sepsis Program Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program in Emergency Services.
- 2017, Achieved 30% increase in Nurse Leader Rounding for 120 days for PIP in Medical-Surgical Services- initiated test of change for consistent charge nurse leader rounding for three months.
- 2016, Partnered with education department for ongoing internship of student nurses.
- 2016, Successful Certification on Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program with no findings.
- 2016, Certified Charge Nurse Training Instructor.
- 2015, Ebola Committee –implemented protocol on patient presenting signs and symptoms in emergency department.
- 2015, Implementation of Electronic Health Record – Quadramed in the emergency department.
- 2014, Admission Committee to reduce length of Stay.
- 2014, ED to ED Transfer Committee- Co-Chair with Saint Louis Regional Hospital Director.
- 2014, Initiated and implemented 'Patient in Bed' in 15 minutes – reduced length of stay (LOS) in the emergency department from 230 minutes to 90 minutes.
- 2014, Clinical Work Group (Quadramed) Hospital-Wide Co Chair and represented the emergency department.
- 2014, Clinical Work Group (Picis) Emergency Department Co-Chair.
- 2014, Achieved no findings during Stroke Certification in the emergency department.
Affiliations
- Emergency Nurses Association (Member)
- Delta Epsilon Tau National Honor Society – Aspen University (Member)
- American Nurses Association (Member)
- Association of California Nurse Leaders (Member)
Academic Preparation
- Master of Science in Nursing, Nursing Administration and Business Management, Aspen University, Denver, Colorado, 2018-01-01
- Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Saint Louis University, Philippines, 1992-01-01
License And Certification
- California Registered Nurse License No. 597565, 2027-11-01
- Advance Cardiac Life Support, AHA, 2027-09-01
- Basic Life Support, AHA, 2027-05-01
- Pediatric Life Support, AHA, 2027-09-01
Timeline
Clinic Nurse Manager – Dialysis In-Center
Satellite Healthcare
08.2022 - Current
Interim Assistant Nurse Manager – Medical- Surgical Telemetry
Emerald Health Services - Traveling Agency
02.2021 - 08.2022
Director – Emergency and Critical Care Services
Watsonville Community Hospital
04.2020 - 12.2020
Director – Emergency Services
Good Samaritan Hospital
09.2017 - 04.2020
Interim Medical-Surgical Telemetry Manager
Good Samaritan Hospital
05.2016 - 08.2017
Clinical Nurse Manager - Emergency Department
O’Connor Hospital
03.2014 - 04.2015
Assistant Nurse Manager - Emergency Department
O’Connor Hospital
02.2013 - 02.2014
Charge Nurse – Emergency Department
O’Connor Hospital
06.2012 - 01.2013
Assistant Director of Nursing (Education)
Bay Area College of Nursing
07.2010 - 05.2012
Charge Nurse – Emergency Department
O’Connor Hospital
06.2002 - 06.2010
Bachelor of Science - Nursing
Saint Louis University
Master of Science - Nursing Administration and Business Management
Aspen University