Sunitha John
Stewartsville,USA
Summary
A highly skilled, accomplished, professional healthcare leader with over 12 years of leadership and management experience in Perioperative and Perinatal Services. More than 30 years of clinical nursing experience in various settings that include the Operating Room, Emergency room, Intensive care unit, and L&D. Regarded as an open-minded, transformational, practical, organized, and inclusive leader. Strong operational leadership experience including patient safety, productivity, clinical expertise, continuous process improvement, patient experience, short-term and long-term strategic planning, finance, and project management.
Overview
32
32
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Director, Perioperative Services, Endoscopy & Bron
Temple Health – Fox Chase Cancer Center
Philadelphia, USA
02.2026 - Current
- Provided leadership for perioperative endoscopy and bronchoscopy services, supporting over 11,000 annual procedures.
- Oversaw staffing performance management and labor relations in a unionized environment.
- Managed local supply chain finance, emergency management operations, and educational functions.
- Collaborated with finance on capital and operational budgeting; negotiated vendor contracts to standardize supplies.
- Optimized patient scheduling through collaboration with surgeons and adherence to anesthesia guidelines, minimizing case cancellations.
- Efficiency with Pre-procedure readiness, FCOT's & TAT's.
- Optimizing patients for phase-1 recovery times and phase-2 holistic discharge- improving Press Ganey scores to 90% consistently.
- Supported Magnet designation activities and promoted shared governance and clinical ladder initiatives.
- Leveraged Epic, Power BI, and other data platforms to enhance quality and efficiency metrics.
- Developed training programs and quality initiatives that improved safety outcomes and HCAHPS scores.
Director, Perioperative Services Main Campus, Nort
Trinity Health – St. Joseph's Health Hospital
Syracuse, USA
12.2025 - 02.2026
- Providing leadership and management for perioperative services. Overseeing operations of 25 Operating rooms, 4 Open Heart OR's, 4 ambulatory surgery rooms [satellite hospital], Heart burn program, 20 PACU Bays, 15 SDS Bays, SPD, PAT, and 4 Endoscopy suites.
- Co‐administration of Supply Chain, Emergency management, finance, operations, and education.
- Sterile processing departments catering to satellite units, including Cath lab, Special procedures, L&D, Endoscopy, wound care, ambulatory surgery center, etc.
- Providing leadership and maintaining excellence in Hernia and Hear burn center program.
- Direct reports comprise 8 Managers, 8 team leaders, and 425 staff.
- Involved with business development, acquiring new surgeon practices, and building new practices.
- Managed staffing, employee relations, and performance appraisals.
- Collaborating with the Finance Officer to propose the Capital budget and the ongoing budget.
- Number of surgeries done in the main campus annually is approximately 16000, 3600 in ambulatory surgery campus, and 4200 Endo procedures.
- Planning and execution of SPM- electronic tracking system for SPD and EPIC superuser.
- Building project‐ construction of new OR's, purchase of the latest Robot‐ DV5.
Assistant Vice President of Perioperative and Perinatal Services
RWJBH Somerset
Somerville, USA
02.2024 - 03.2025
- Providing leadership and management for perioperative services including 13 Operating rooms, 21 PACU Bays, 15 SDS Bays, SPD, and PAT.
- Perinatal services with 2 operating rooms, postpartum unit and step-down NICU.
- Direct reports comprise- 7 Managers, 4 Co-coordinators, 8 team leaders, and 175 staff.
- Involved with business development, acquiring new surgeon practices, building new practices.
- Managed staffing, employee relations, and performance appraisals for approximately 175 direct reports of RNs, Surgical Technicians, Ancillary Staff, Anesthesia techs, etc.
- Collaborating with the Finance Officer to propose Capital budget and ongoing budget.
Administrative Director, Perioperative Service
RWJBH Somerset
Somerville, USA
08.2018 - 02.2025
- Providing leadership and management for perioperative services including 13 Operating rooms, 2 Endoscopy units, 21 PACU Bays, 15 SDS Bays, SPD, and PAT.
- Covered as Nursing Supervisor for the hospital during nights, weekends and holidays.
- Worked on quality initiatives for the ER, Inpatient areas, and other procedural areas.
- Covered as Interim Director of IR and Cath Lab when needed.
- Direct reports comprise- 5 Managers, 4 Co-coordinators, 8 team leaders, and 155 staff.
- Actively involved in strategic planning and business development.
- Increased case Volume to over 600 cases per year.
- Decreased agency staff usage from 21 to zero.
- Spearheaded efforts to improve surgical patient safety through increased collaboration among surgical team members and using a surgical safety pre-op checklist.
- Spearheaded and increased the first case on time starting from 58% to 75%.
- Heading a team to improve turnaround time.
- Reached 30 minutes from 34 minutes for turnaround time between scheduled cases.
- Actively involved in the hand hygiene/hand washing committee.
- Achieved goal of consistently above 98%.
- Improved block utilization for surgeons from 30% to 70%.
- Able to guide and plan the Peri Op 101 orientation program.
- Lead team effort between management, educator, and quality coordinator to identify key areas for improvement by revising audit tools, and reviewing and investigating Patient Safety Net reports.
- Worked with Educators and Managers to develop strategies to meet established metrics.
- Utilized lean methodologies to reduce first-case patient wait time from registration to OR by 50%.
- Managed staffing, employee relations, and performance appraisals for approximately 155 direct reports of RNs, Surgical Technicians, Ancillary Staff, Anesthesia techs, etc.
- Collaborating with the Finance Officer to propose Capital budget and ongoing budget.
Nurse Manager of Operations
RWJBH Somerset
Somerville, USA
05.2016 - 08.2018
- Responsibilities included overseeing case scheduling, block management, working with surgeons and anesthesiologists, interacting with vendors, annual and ongoing budget management, staff scheduling, and payroll.
- Stabilized and sustained the smooth running of 6 departments during the transition and change of 6 interim directors.
- Filled in as Interim Educator.
- Filled in for quality coordinator, SPD, and materials manager as needed.
Nurse Manager of Operations
Saint Barnabas Medical Centre
Livingston, USA
12.2012 - 05.2016
- Managed Periop Services with 24 Operating Rooms. This Includes Robotics, Transplant Surgery, pediatric Surgery and Open Heart surgery.
- Managed daily operations for 2 CVOR's, 2 pediatric OR's and 2 Robot OR's, 1 Vascular hybrid OR and 1 neuro OR. Surgeries include kidney/liver transplants, CABG, TAVR, Aneurysms, and Craniotomies.
- Increased case Volume to over 830 cases per year. (Total of 15000 cases per year, with 15 to 25 open heart surgeries).
- 8 Direct reports, who were the team leaders for various specialties and a total of 120 FTE.
- Actively involved in strategic planning and business development.
- Spearheaded and increased the first case on time starting from 58% to 85%.
- Heading a team to improve turnaround time. Reached 34 minutes from 44 minutes for turnaround time between scheduled cases.
- Improved block utilization for surgeons from 60% to 90%.
- Spearheaded the Robot program and currently operating 3 Davinci Robots and 2 Mako for joints.
Registered Nurse- Operating Room
Saint Barnabas Medical Centre
Livingston, USA
02.2006 - 12.2012
- Hands-on experience on a daily basis with surgery for all age groups.
- Expert in circulating and scrubbing for surgery.
Registered Nurse- Operating Room
Irvington General Hospital
Irvington, USA
05.2005 - 02.2006
- Hands-on experience on a daily basis with surgery for all age groups.
- Expert in circulating and scrubbing for surgery.
Registered Nurse- Emergency Room
Irvington General Hospital
Irvington, USA
07.2003 - 05.2005
- Staff Nurse in the Emergency Room which included adult and pediatric patients.
Lecturer/ Clinical Instructor
CSI Multispecialty Hospital
Chennai, India
07.1995 - 06.2003
- This included- Fundamentals of Nursing Arts, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Instructor in the ED and Med-Surg Nursing.
Registered Nurse- Emergency Department
Christian Medical College and Hospital
Vellore, India
07.1994 - 07.1995
- Staff Nurse in the Emergency Room which included adult and pediatric patients.
Education
MBA - Organizational Management
Eastern University
03-2025
MSN - Nursing Administration
University of Phoenix
10-2022
Bachelor of Science - Nursing And Midwifery
Christian Medical College And Hospital
Vellore, India06-1994
Skills
- Leadership
- Management
- Clinical Nursing
- Patient Safety
- Strategic Planning
- Budgeting
- Project Management
- Communication
- Interpersonal Skills
- Vendor Management
- Critical Thinking
- Lean Methodologies
- Team Player
Affiliations
- AORN
- ONL
- AAIN-NJ2
- PNANJ
Certification
- CNOR
- ACLS
- BLS
- FEMA – IS-00700.b
- FEMA - IS-00100.c
- NE-BC in progress
Timeline
Director, Perioperative Services, Endoscopy & Bron
Temple Health – Fox Chase Cancer Center
02.2026 - Current
Director, Perioperative Services Main Campus, Nort
Trinity Health – St. Joseph's Health Hospital
12.2025 - 02.2026
Assistant Vice President of Perioperative and Perinatal Services
RWJBH Somerset
02.2024 - 03.2025
Administrative Director, Perioperative Service
RWJBH Somerset
08.2018 - 02.2025
Nurse Manager of Operations
RWJBH Somerset
05.2016 - 08.2018
Nurse Manager of Operations
Saint Barnabas Medical Centre
12.2012 - 05.2016
Registered Nurse- Operating Room
Saint Barnabas Medical Centre
02.2006 - 12.2012
Registered Nurse- Operating Room
Irvington General Hospital
05.2005 - 02.2006
Registered Nurse- Emergency Room
Irvington General Hospital
07.2003 - 05.2005
Lecturer/ Clinical Instructor
CSI Multispecialty Hospital
07.1995 - 06.2003
Registered Nurse- Emergency Department
Christian Medical College and Hospital
07.1994 - 07.1995
MBA - Organizational Management
Eastern University
MSN - Nursing Administration
University of Phoenix
Bachelor of Science - Nursing And Midwifery
Christian Medical College And Hospital