Massiel Heffner, BSN, RN

Enterprise executive leadership role accountable for access, compliance, and operational performance across the network. Provide system-level oversight for nursing-adjacent and patient-facing services spanning three clinical sites and remote teams.

Vice-President-Level Contributions

• Designed and scaled enterprise operating systems across Medication Support, Referrals, Laboratory Services, and Infection Control, directly improving patient access, reducing organizational risk, and strengthening audit readiness across the health center.
• Transformed Medication Support into a high-performing, audit-ready operation, reducing prior authorization turnaround times from 7–10 days to 2.1 days while scaling resolved inbasket volume from 28 messages in Q1 to 11,816 in Q4—without proportional staffing growth—and sustaining a 94.9% task completion rate under rising demand.
• Established formal compliance and documentation infrastructure, implementing the organization’s first biannual chart audit process for Medication Support, improving standardization, documentation quality, and regulatory defensibility.
• Led one of Callen-Lorde’s most significant access turnarounds within Referrals, executing the “Catch Up and Keep Up” initiative that reduced overall backlog by 84%, enabled same-day STAT referrals, achieved urgent referral turnaround averaging 4.7 days, and expanded point-of-care self-serve referrals across eight specialties.
• Established laboratory governance through structured communication and education, launching a standardized weekly Lab Digest tied to error reduction and site-level accountability, and coordinating multi-vendor, partner-led trainings to improve specimen handling accuracy and protocol adherence.
• Standardized clinical performance management across sites, designing and implementing the organization’s first Disciplinary Action Chart to address long-standing inconsistencies, improve fairness, and ensure timely corrective action.
• Assumed enterprise nursing leadership responsibilities during executive transition, providing decision support, operational continuity, and system stability; expanded scope formally recognized through salary adjustment.
• Maintain selective clinical engagement to remain connected to frontline workflows and support staff during periods of operational strain, ensuring executive decisions remain grounded in clinical reality.

Led nursing operations during periods of growth, audit risk, and regulatory complexity.

• Stabilized and rebuilt high-risk grant-funded programs, redesigning staffing models, workflows, assessment tools, and escalation pathways to restore compliance and sustainability.
• Turned the PAWH (People Aging with HIV) program from audit failure to audit success, securing a three-year grant renewal and developing a staffing model later recognized by the AIDS Institute as a potential national standard of care for older adults living with HIV.
• Re-engineered compliance infrastructure for the MTH grant program, transitioning the program from audit vulnerability to audit-ready status.
• Introduced lean inventory management systems using par levels, Kanban methodology, and provider preference cards, reducing waste, expirations, and rework and saving the organization thousands of dollars annually.
• Implemented a Daily Management System (DMS) to provide real-time visibility into staffing, assignments, and coverage—improving communication, accountability, and operational control. System remains in daily use.

• Built leadership capacity and workforce productivity, developing a structured leadership development program for Nursing and Care Coordination administrators using LinkedIn Learning and applied leadership sessions.
• Designed an annual online learning curriculum for floor nurses, reducing paid idle time while supporting professional development and operational efficiency.

• Designed and implemented the Abnormal Results Notification System (PAQ Project), shifting responsibility from providers to nursing, improving timeliness, continuity, and patient safety; system remains the organization-wide standard.
• Established the first formal annual competency assessments for LPNs and MAs and led the organization’s first Skills Fairs, standardizing competency validation across sites.
• Co-led Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) certification efforts, supporting interdisciplinary workflow alignment and quality documentation.
• Introduced nursing preceptorship and train-the-trainer onboarding models, reducing variability and improving readiness of new hires.

• Created the first standardized RN Nutrition Counseling curriculum, establishing evidence-based teaching frameworks that remain the active standard of care.

Cum Laude

Planned/In Progress