Director, Nursing Workforce & Systems Analysis, Director, Bi-State Nursing Workforce Innovation Cent
Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics
Kansas City, MO
As the Director of Nursing Workforce and Systems Analysis at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics she oversees the organization's systems research and is the lead on projects that investigates the impact of nursing resources on organizational and patient outcomes. She is also the new Director for the Bi-State Nursing Workorce Innovation Center, a partnership with the Health Foundation of Kansas City (HCF) and the REACH Foundation. The Center will lead and champion work environment change projects and process improvements at the point of care; both of which will be nurse-led, the later of which is now funded by a Partnership in Nursing (PIN) grant awarded in August of 2008 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Foundation. She has served as a consultant for the Mississippi Office for Nursing Workforce to extend the RN Nurse Internship program for all nursing students working with both service and academic leaders state-wide. She was the lead investigator for the development and testing of the new pediatric quality indicators for the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) now being used by over 450 pediatric nursing units across the US, which analyzes pain interventions and intravenous site infiltrations linked to nurse staffing; the first work of its kind in pediatric care. She served as co-author of the pediatric chapter for the Joint Commission's latest book, Medication Safety Handbook, Edited by Clarke, S. and Cima, L. first author for the inpatient pediatric chapter, Advances in Patient Safety and Quality - An Evidence-based Handbook for Nurses, sponsored jointly by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, soon to be published. Dr. Lacey is on the steering committee for the National Nursing Practice Network TM, a component of the Research, Translation and Dissemination Core of the funded Gerontological Nursing Interventions Research Center, University of Iowa, which promotes nursing practice excellence, innovation, translation science and evidence-based practice nation-wide. She reviews for four major nursing journals and serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Nursing Care Quality and has published extensively. She was a contributing author to the award winning book, State Nursing Workforce Initiatives: The Long View. Dr. Lacey holds a patent for decision-support software for front line and senior managers to monitor adverse events and nurse staffing. She will be inducted into the American Academy of Nursing in November 2008. Her goal is to create a new narrative for the profession in the hearts and minds of consumers that nurses are impacting the quality agenda, "One Nurse, one system at a time".