Ms. Friedman brings more than 30 years of health care experience to her role as a JCR consultant. Her expertise includes systems analysis, process improvement, quality standards and regulatory requirements. She provides educational and technical assistance to health care organizations in the areas of accreditation and regulatory affairs, quality systems implementation, and achieving goals through organizational excellence, strategic planning, medical staff/board responsibilities and bylaws.
Ms. Friedman’s experience ranges in scope from nurse’s aide and staff nurse in medical-surgical settings to Director of Nursing at The Institute of Psychiatry at Northwestern Medical Center in Chicago. She then accepted the position of Vice President of Nursing at Covenant Medical Center in Urbana, Illinois at the beginning of the merger between Mercy Hospital and Burnham City hospital where was responsible for combining the nursing departments of the two hospitals into one. This involved total integration of all of nursing services, in addition to the ongoing establishment of quality/performance improvement systems; evaluation of medication management processes; use of data to measure performance; medical error reduction; implementation of infection control practices; nursing leadership education; and standards and survey process education and preparation.
She was promoted to Executive Vice President and became the leader of a hospitalwide re-engineering process. This included reviewing all systems in the hospital, mapping those systems, developing process improvements and implementing the processes. She was chosen by the board of directors of the hospital to become its Chief Executive Officer. During her tenure as CEO Ms. Friedman developed many quality initiatives which enabled the hospital to achieve recognition in several areas.
Ms. Friedman has published articles in professional journals and has been a speaker in many venues over the years. Her publications have focused on care of the patient, quality improvement initiatives, process improvement and system redesign.
During a brief interlude from health care, Ms. Friedman taught history as well as other subjects to high school students in Chicago’s inner city. Ms. Friedman received her nursing diploma from Michael Reese Hospital School of nursing, a Bachelor of Arts from Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois; Master of Arts, University of Illinois, Chicago; Masters of Science in Nursing, University of Illinois Chicago; and was a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois.
Ms. Friedman has been active in professional organizations throughout her career including the Illinois Nurse’s Association, American Nurses Association, American College of Healthcare Executives, and Sigma Theta Tau. She has served as the regional president for the state organization of nurse executives and president of the regional state hospital association. She has also served as the Chair of the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce, Vice President of the Champaign County Head Start Foundation, and on the board of the United Way and various other community boards.