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Ava Abney is a Baldrige and Quality
consultant for Baptist Leadership
Institute and the Corporate Vice
President, Quality & Patient Safety for
Baptist Health Care. Rising to the rank
of Commander in the Nurse Corps, United
States Navy, Ava retired and joined
Baptist Health Care in July 2005.
Recognized as the catalyst behind
numerous innovative and cost-saving
ideas and for spearheading a number of
multi-disciplined process improvement
initiatives, Ava established new
thresholds of performance and benchmarks
in customer service for Navy Medicine
during her career. Using her “Southern
Girl” personality, she enthusiastically
shares her insight and years of
experience as a leader, facilitator,
consultant and seasoned professional
speaker. Relentlessly innovative, Ava is
committed to improving the performance
of health care organizations by linking
cultural and service excellence with the
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Program framework.
As the Vice President of Quality and
Patient Safety for Baptist Health Care,
Ava is responsible for the overall
definition, implementation and
maintenance of quality and patient
safety initiatives. She leads Baptist
Health Care in clinical decision
support, patient safety, Baldrige
preparation, JCAHO and other regulatory
compliance, policy/procedure/clinical
pathways and guidelines, quality
improvement, and knowledge transfer
within the system. Ava is most
passionate about earning exceptional
customer loyalty and patient health care
outcomes and how both positively impact
the bottom-line. Both she says, “present
excellent business cases for quality.”
A Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award Examiner, Governor’s Sterling
Award Examiner for the state of Florida
and member of the American College of
Healthcare Executives, Ava is a past
leader of a national healthcare best
practices sharing project and has
received numerous awards and other forms
of recognition.
Ava holds a Bachelor of Science
degree in Nursing from the University of
Southern Mississippi and a Master of
Science degree in Management from Troy
State University.
In her words: “I am energized by setting
quality and patient outcome goals at
seemingly insurmountable levels. With
that said, I am openly fanatical and
obsessed with viewing the health care
environment through the eyes of the most
vulnerable. I am committed to making
their experience far better than they
expected it to be.” |
