Yolanda E. Farias-Ruiz
Houston,United States
Summary
Certified Nurse Executive with over 30 years of acute care hospital nursing leadership in leading, planning, structuring, development, strategy implementation, integration and execution of cost-effective clinical operations in accordance with all legal, compliance and regulatory requirements as outline by State and Federal Guidelines with a focus on rendering safe, quality patient care, driving patient outcomes and fostering an environment that is built on trust and teamwork.
Overview
48
48
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Director of Patient Care
CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
06.2023 - 05.2025
- Served as Director of Patient Care for Acute Care service lines providing clinical and executive leadership to five direct reports, clinical managers, one for every unit (20 Tower and 23 Terrace combined reporting to one manager); 255 FTE’s.
- Provided direct oversight of nursing unit transitions and capacity expansion resulting in a 8% increase in acute care bed capacity.
- Developed nursing education and training program for specialty population nursing units for orthopedic, transplant, LVAD and bariatric care.
- Identified and developed nurse education champion role for specialty nursing units focusing on RN Residents and new RN hires onboarding achieving 100% specialty trained nurses; successfully meeting Oncology, Transplant, LVAD, Orthopedic and Bariatric regulatory standards and re-accreditation.
- Facilitated and supported multiple DNV surveys, Joint Commission LVAD and Transplant, Commission on Cancer and bariatric regulatory surveys with no deficiencies; implemented innovative patient monitoring processes and programs to assure quality assurance in accordance with regulatory specific standards.
- Established trusted physician relationships through dyad partnership meetings focusing on quality improvement initiatives and programs, both unit-based and organization-wide.
- Responsible for providing and developing professional leadership for newly hired and transferred managers, directors and charge nurses within the nursing division; provision, coordination, implementation, administration, and evaluation of nursing care to patients and families; 100% nurse manager retention including successful promotion of 4 nurse managers.
- Oversight of opening of surgical unit and expanding of services to orthopedic and bariatric patient populations; 100% nurses trained specific to orthopedic and bariatric patient care.
- Successful implementation of quality improvement initiatives including development of LVAD monitoring and measurement to ensure regulatory compliance.
- Identified gaps in chemotherapy administration turnaround time for direct admit oncology patients; successful implementation of revised process for reduction of turnaround time from 8 hours to 2 hours average turnaround time.
- Responsible for monitoring metrics to validate performance against national and system benchmarks and to ensure the delivery of competent clinical practice is consistently achieved.
- Assure quality standards are implemented, maintained, and revisions to processes are updated and revised as appropriate.
- Oversight on units’ productivity consistently maintaining >100% of managed departments
- Lead/Chair/Voting Member of numerous organizational, divisional and national committees listed below including the , Nurse Peer Review Committee (NPRC) served as administrator advisor; revision of policy and streamlined nurse referral process
Director of Patient Care
CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
01.2018 - 07.2023
- 20 Tower Medical/Hematology-Oncology Nursing Unit
- 23 Terrace, VIP Suites, Cardiovascular Services
- Interim Director, 22 Tower, Neuro-Science Nursing Unit
- Interim Director, 21 Tower, Medical Telemetry Nursing Unit
- Interim Director, 24 Tower, Medical Telemetry Nursing Unit
- Interim Director, 25 Tower, COVID Telemetry, Cardiovascular Nursing Unit
- Implement and coordinate multidisciplinary bedside rounding on 100% of medical oncology patients
- Evidence-based walking bedside shift report successfully implemented inclusive of all skill levels
- Development of unit practice councils and formation of unit-based committees for shared decision-making; staff engagement in hospital councils/committees
- Professional EP Council
- Fall Committee
- Blood Committee
- Beacon Committee; Clinical Informatics
- Infection Prevention Committee
- Shared Governance Council, past chair and co-chairs
- Education Committee
- Acute Care Shared Council
- Research Council
- Nominee, Research Team Award (Jenny Li, RN participant)
- Implementation of evidence-based clinical practice of increasing bedside nurses participation in inter-professional daily rounds
- Medication Safety Committee
- Skin Prevention Committee
- 1 Abstract, co-author and Poster Presentation, co-presenter
- Staff Development
- 30% RN certification rate (8 of 27 RNs; 1 MSCN, 7 OCN); increase from 4 since 2020
- 1 RN III, 4 RN IVs
- 2 MSN (includes 1 NP)
- 1 DNP in progress
- 3 MSN in progress
- 1 PCA in accelerated BSN (UTMB) program
- 1 Friends of Nursing BSN graduate, 20+ years as PCA 20 Tower
Nurse Consultant
Special Recreation Services
08.2017 - 01.2018
- Contract and consultant nurse to community program for special needs population
- Comprehensive nursing assessments, development of staff training program, quality audits for monitoring regulatory compliance, and development of consumer special needs care plans and staff training
- Establish and encourage open communication among staff and between staff and management team through establishment staff driven agenda items at staff meetings
Director of Nursing, Patient Care
LBJ Hospital, Harris Health System
10.2012 - 07.2017
- Implemented chemotherapy administration guidelines with improvement to administration times 100% of the time
- Recruitments efforts decreased RN vacancy rate below 10% on all 3 units in 2017
- Sustain patient satisfaction scores and exceeded monthly target goals in 2016 and 2017
- Development of shared governance board and formation of unit-based committees for shared decision-making
- Project champion for the development and implementation of a scripted handoff as a safety tool for safe patient handling of non-critical inpatients while being transported between departments; a system-wide electronic clinical ticket to ride was created and implemented.
- Project champion to increase patient satisfaction scores for dimensions of Discharge Instruction and Care Transitions exceeding pavilion scores.
Nurse Clinical Manager
Ben Taub General Hospital, Harris Health System
03.2012 - 10.2012
- Level 1 Trauma Center hospital located in Texas Medical Center. Requested by the Director to transfer to this fast-paced, high acuity level, IMU nursing unit to provide management oversight with operational and personnel management.
- Realignment of appropriate skill mix to meet patient care needs and appropriate nurse to patient ratios
- Activated shared governance board to support shared decision making among staff
- Implemented self-scheduling among all skill levels with scheduling guidelines
- Increased unit based patient satisfaction overall hospital rating score by 10 points within 3 months
Nurse Clinical Manager
LBJ Hospital, Harris Health System
01.2011 - 03.2012
- Provide direct 24/7 responsibilities for overall departmental and clinical operations, budget planning, fiscal management and cost control, personnel management and quality outcome management.
Nurse Clinical Manager
Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center
05.2009 - 01.2011
- Direct responsibility for overall nursing departmental operation, budget planning and cost control, personnel management of 38 FTE’s, quality assurance program and unit staffing and schedules.
Associate Director, Clinical Nursing
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
05.2001 - 02.2009
- Developed, planned and implemented strategic, long term and daily operational processes and leadership for providing internal supplemental nursing resources to a 500+ bed specialty hospital.
- Development of departmental and clinical operations, budget planning, fiscal management and cost control, personnel management of 96 FTE’s
- Implemented the first annual competency fair for float pool registered nurses, nurse assistants, and patient safety assistants.
- Developed Create Solutions teams with a focus on increasing and enhancing staff communication and teamwork among the float pool staff
- Developed and implemented 24/7 centralized staffing office operation to manage and allocate staffing resources to 17 inpatient units
Assistant Nurse Manager
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
05.2000 - 11.2001
- Direct supervision and responsibility for overall divisional operation of clinical research nursing services in the Radiation Oncology Division.
Special Projects Coordinator, Staffing and Scheduling
Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Memorial Hermann Hospital
04.1998 - 04.2000
Nurse Manager, Rehabilitation Nursing Unit and Skilled Nursing Facility
Memorial Hermann Healthcare System
04.1996 - 04.1998
Nurse Manager, Adult/Pediatric, Medical-Surgical, 23 Hour Observation Unit
Memorial Hospital System, Memorial Hospital Northwest
04.1993 - 03.1996
Staff Nurse
Memorial Hospital System Memorial Hospital Northwest
12.1985 - 04.1993
School Nurse
Houston Independent School District
09.1981 - 08.1990
Staff Nurse
Houston - Diagnostic Clinic, Dialysis
08.1979 - 08.1981
Staff Nurse
Houston -Hermann Hospital
09.1977 - 08.1979
Education
Doctor of Nursing Practice -
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas12.2016
Master of Science - Nursing Administration
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Galveston, Texas05.1993
Bachelor of Science - Nursing
Texas Woman's University
Denton, Texas05.1977
Skills
- Oncology clinical nursing practice and medical-surgical telemetry nursing practice
- Development of hospital policies and procedures
- Nursing leadership management competencies and skills
- Physician and employee engagement
- Emergency Preparedness
- Care Coordination
- Quality management
- Budget and fiscal responsibilities and management
- Continuous Improvement Process
- Organizational Transformation
- Project management
Accomplishments
- Oncology Nursing Society Congress Conference e-Poster (accepted) co-presenter, “A Quality Improvement Initiative to Reduce Hospital-Acquired Pressure Injuries (HAPI) In An Acute Inpatient Oncology Unit By Implementation Of A Pressure Injury Prevention Bundle” (PIP) And Chart Audit”, at ONS Congress 2023, April 2023
- Abstract, co-author, “A Quality Improvement Initiative to Reduce Hospital-Acquired Pressure Injuries (HAPI) In An Acute Inpatient Oncology Unit By Implementation Of A Pressure Injury Prevention Bundle” (PIP) And Chart Audit”, at ONS Congress 2023, April 2023
- Panelist, “Imposter Syndrome: Don’t Worry - It’s Ok To Feel Like You’re Faking It!, UT Health San Antonio, Cultural Inclusion Institute, 8th Annual Cultural Inclusion Conference, April 2023.
- Nurse Leader Award and Induction, Sigma Theta Tau, April, 2023
- Project champion on multiple patient experience teams which included development and implementation of piloted scripts for nursing staff, implementation of best practices to improve patient satisfaction scores.
- Oncology Nursing Society 2020 Congress Conference e-Poster (accepted) presenter, “Standardization of Oncology Practices Across the Continuum: Inpatient Nurses Transform Care In An Outpatient Infusion Center”, at ONS 45th Annual Congress, May 2020 (in person canceled due to pandemic 2020, video submitted)
- Abstract, “Standardization of Oncology Practices Across the Continuum: Inpatient Nurses Transform Care In An Outpatient Infusion Center”, published in the online Oncology Nursing Forum, June 2020.
- Poster team presenter at IHI National Forum on Quality Improvement in Healthcare Conference, Orlando, December 2020. “Survey Ready Everyday: Successful completion of the largest survey in the history of CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center Houston, Texas 2019”
- Project oversight for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) re-visit to oncology outpatient center for full validation of regulatory compliance, standardized delivery of oncology care across the continuum employing the evidence-based American Society of Clinical Oncology and Oncology Nursing Society Safety Standards for chemotherapy and immunotherapy ordering, preparation and dispensing, administration and monitoring resulting in zero deficiencies during CMS site re-visit, Deemed status was restored and Medicare Termination notice was avoided, 2019.
- Abstract and poster presentation at the 2008 Annual Meeting of American Organization of Nurse Executives. “Providing a Specialty Nursing Resource Pool, A Unit Without Walls”
- Presenter at Texas Hospital Association Patient Safety Committee in Austin, Texas, June 2017, on development and implementation of a system-wide electronic clinical ticket-to-ride for safe patient handling while transporting non-critical inpatients.
- Medical Telemetry and Medical Oncology Nursing Units for Diamond and Emerald Awards for Nursing Clinical Excellence, Harris Health Systems Awards, May 2017
- Houston Chronicle’s Top 150 Outstanding Nurses, May 2017
- John Hopkins University, Nursing Leadership Academy, April 2017
Affiliations
- American Nurses Association
- Texas Nurses Association
- Oncology Nursing Society
- Houston Chapter Oncology Society
- Sigma Theta Tau
Certification
- Texas Board of Nurses, Registered Nurse License, Expiration October 2027
- Nurse Executive - Board Certified, Expiration June 2029
Professional Development/Contributions
- Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center - Committees, Membership, Contributions
- Nurse Peer Review, administrator advisor
- Nursing Leadership Council, member
- Unit Practice Councils, adjunct member and administrator advisor
- Performance Enhancement Committee, administrator advisor
- Daisy Award Committee, administrator advisor
- Length of Stay - Lean Team Committee, member
- Fall Committee, member
- Clinical Nurse Council, administrator advisor
- Nursing/Pharmacy Committee, advisor
- Shared Governance Council, administrator advisor
- Heme/Oncology Section, member
- Beacon Enhancement and Development, member
- Created pre-chemo checklist, National and Texas Division approval
- Created pre-chemo pregnancy test committee, National and Texas Division approval
- 2nd RN verification for chemotherapy administration process, unit-based initiative
- Developed verification of chemotherapy drug delivery prior to chemotherapy administration, unit-based initiative
- Camden University, Preceptor and Mentor
- Doctoral Student, 2022; 2023, and 2025
- Master of Science, Nursing Student 2023
- The University of Arizona Global Campus
- RN-BSN Program Advisory Committee Member, 2023 to current
- International Association of Latino Nurse Educator-Nurse Leader
- Board of Directors Member, 2023 to current
Languages
English
Full Professional
Spanish
Native or Bilingual
Timeline
Director of Patient Care
CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
06.2023 - 05.2025
Director of Patient Care
CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
01.2018 - 07.2023
Nurse Consultant
Special Recreation Services
08.2017 - 01.2018
Director of Nursing, Patient Care
LBJ Hospital, Harris Health System
10.2012 - 07.2017
Nurse Clinical Manager
Ben Taub General Hospital, Harris Health System
03.2012 - 10.2012
Nurse Clinical Manager
LBJ Hospital, Harris Health System
01.2011 - 03.2012
Nurse Clinical Manager
Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center
05.2009 - 01.2011
Associate Director, Clinical Nursing
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
05.2001 - 02.2009
Assistant Nurse Manager
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
05.2000 - 11.2001
Special Projects Coordinator, Staffing and Scheduling
Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Memorial Hermann Hospital
04.1998 - 04.2000
Nurse Manager, Rehabilitation Nursing Unit and Skilled Nursing Facility
Memorial Hermann Healthcare System
04.1996 - 04.1998
Nurse Manager, Adult/Pediatric, Medical-Surgical, 23 Hour Observation Unit
Memorial Hospital System, Memorial Hospital Northwest
04.1993 - 03.1996
Staff Nurse
Memorial Hospital System Memorial Hospital Northwest
12.1985 - 04.1993
School Nurse
Houston Independent School District
09.1981 - 08.1990
Staff Nurse
Houston - Diagnostic Clinic, Dialysis
08.1979 - 08.1981
Staff Nurse
Houston -Hermann Hospital
09.1977 - 08.1979
Master of Science - Nursing Administration
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Bachelor of Science - Nursing
Texas Woman's University
Doctor of Nursing Practice -
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio