Working at UK - Sarah's Story

With the opening of a new state-of-the-art patient care facility in 2011, UK HealthCare is on the verge of an exciting new era. As an employee of UK HealthCare for the last seven years, and a registered nurse (RN), Sarah has had the unique opportunity of being part of UK HealthCare’s impressive growth during that time.

Since 2009, Sarah has served as Chief Medical Office Coordinator, while continuing to serve in an on hand capacity as a nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the Kentucky Children’s Hospital.  In her primary role, Sarah works closely with UK HealthCare’s Chief Medical Officer Paul DePriest, M.D. and colleagues across the organization on ways to continually improve clinical outcomes, as well as the overall health care experience for patients and their families.

In many cases, our patients face unique challenges that require the most highly specialized care available anywhere across the state (or the country, for that matter). Naturally, that raises the bar for Sarah and her colleagues at the patient bedside to provide the most thoughtful and attentive care to those patients.

After seeing the success of some of the initiatives she’s been involved with, you can understand why Sarah finds her job so fulfilling.

“In my role, I’m able to connect administrative priorities and goals with the practice in the clinical setting,” Sarah said. “Our doctors and nurses see positive results and our patients are more satisfied.”

So even as Sarah continues to help newborn patients and their families  in her role, insights from that experience are helping shape UK HealthCare’s efforts to continually improve care for all patients.  For Sarah, the opportunity to help shape and refine patient practices at an innovative and growing academic medical center is simply not something you could find in most health care settings, including community hospitals.

Challenging? Yes, but clearly the kind of challenge Sarah and her colleagues welcome. You can be sure those efforts are making a difference in the lives of patients and their families - across the Commonwealth and beyond.