Meet the Innovators: Nursing and forensic science leader cares for others through ongoing education and technology transformation

Meet Susan B. Patton, DNSc, APRN, FAANP, FAAN

As a teenager, Susan’s inquisitive and innovative nature fueled her keen interest in science. But as she neared the end of her senior year in high school, her career path remained uncertain and she wondered where her academic interests might take her. It was during this pivotal year that a family friend, a nurse at a large Memphis hospital, saw Susan’s strong caregiving potential and extended an invitation for Susan to shadow her during a surgical shift. Susan’s curiosity, affinity for risk taking and love of education led to an experience that would change her life forever.

Over the course of that 12-hour shift, Susan witnessed the power and influence of nursing and was exposed to the many functions of healthcare. She saw the nurturing yet highly technical aspects of the nursing profession. Susan knew she was in the right place at the right time – and in that moment chose to pursue a career in nursing.

She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from the University of Memphis and later, a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). A lifelong learner, her education and passion for serving others as an educator was influenced by the admiration she had for her parents and the work they did throughout their careers — her mother as a schoolteacher and principal, and her father as an insurance sales representative and coach.

Dr. Patton’s journey led her to forge a career path in forensic nursing and to the University of Tennessee, where she earned her Doctor of Nursing Science (DNSc). Through this work, she provided compassionate care to those who experienced trauma or abuse. As a certified Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, Dr. Patton practiced in a medical examiner’s office and worked alongside local police to assist in law enforcement, applying a unique blend of clinical practice and evidence-based forensic science. Her contributions made a major impact in the communities she served, as she offered support to people through some of the most difficult moments in their lives.

Risk-taker and trailblazer in nursing

Dr. Patton devoted much of her career working in hospitals and clinics as a pediatric nurse practitioner in care areas like the emergency department and neonatal intensive care unit. It was in these units that her interest in intensive care was heightened. As a pediatric nurse practitioner, she was one of the very few nurses in Arkansas to work in private practice at that time. A risk taker and trailblazer by nature, she took a chance on the community embracing an advanced practice nurse – and it paid off.

Sharing a passion for serving children with her husband, a pediatrician, they opened a private practice together, over 30 years ago. Dr. Patton treated children with common illnesses as well as those who were victims of abuse, leveraging her caregiver role and love for forensics to better the lives of others. The clinic remains a large part of her family’s lives, as her husband still practices there and she is very much involved in and committed to the clinic.

Early adopter of technological transformation

While earning her bachelor’s degree at the University of Memphis, the school began offering a computer science program, in which her sister was an engineer. Susan’s exposure to the program sparked her innovative mindset, as she often wondered if there was a way to do things differently and was certain computers and technology would be integral to the future of nursing.

She became an early adopter of new technology and, later in her career, was teaching a doctoral program at the University of Tennessee, where she and her colleagues began to explore the idea of virtual education. This type of learning was nearly unheard of ‌at the time, especially in doctoral education. Always forward-thinking, she sought an innovative solution to demonstrate how technology can transform the way we live, work and learn. “We were one of the first universities that offered a hybrid course, with both in-person and virtual classes combined with doing clinicals where you were located,” explained Dr. Patton. “While it may not sound groundbreaking today, this was the 1990s, so from a brick-and-mortar facility we were really pioneering how technology can support virtual education.”

Applying innovation to improve nursing practice

Five years ago, a role at HCA Healthcare intrigued Dr. Patton: assistant vice president for clinical education in what is now HCA Healthcare’s Center for Clinical Advancement. She was excited about the potential not only to develop education across a large health system but also to provide targeted education in clinical care. This included competency evaluation, accreditation of education and more. It was an ideal learning environment to test education at scale for the enterprise and one that opened the door to her most innovative role yet.

Today, Susan B. Patton, DNSc, APRN, FAANP, FAAN, is assistant vice president of interprofessional education for HCA Healthcare’s department of Care Transformation and Innovation (CT&I). Nearly two years ago, Dr. Patton became one of the founding members of the CT&I team. She was immediately attracted to the creative ideas of the team and the ability to do things differently, including the opportunity to take strategic risks, something that comes naturally to Dr. Patton.

With an academic, future-focused mindset equally balanced with her quest for nursing excellence, Dr. Patton brings a scientific, iterative approach to testing, reiterating and improving products over compressed periods of time. That work manifests in providing education and learning activities to meet the needs of end users, HCA Healthcare clinicians and colleagues, and in working with partners to build and test CT&I’s products like Timpani℠, a scheduling and staffing solution.

Why Timpani and why now? In 2021, CT&I’s formative first year, the team asked clinicians to share their biggest friction points in delivering patient care. With the clinician’s voice as its guide, the CT&I team set out to develop a transformational, automated scheduling and staffing solution to enhance our ability to help ensure we have the right people in the right place at the right time to deliver the best care for our patients.

Timpani provides a proactive, data-driven and patient-centered approach to scheduling and staffing. The solution uses machine-learning algorithms to predict staffing needs and optimize scheduling and staffing according to anticipated unit demand, proficiencies and individual schedule preferences. Timpani creates more transparent, balanced, and fair schedules for care team members.

It was the early development of a nursing skills’ baseball card, which would evolve into the Talent Profile function as a cornerstone of the scheduling and staffing solution, as well as the ability to experiment with creative ideas that attracted Dr. Patton to CT&I’s work. “I said, this is much bigger than what we’re talking about with a baseball card. I knew I could – and wanted to – contribute my expertise around competency to make a significant contribution to how people use education and talent management.”

She has since made good on that promise to our frontline care team members. Dr. Whitney Staub-Juergens, VP of clinical operations and integration for CT&I, says Dr. Patton’s innovative approach to training and development of a Talent Profile for nurses for HCA Healthcare’s Timpani scheduling and staffing solution was a game changer in nursing science.

“One industry-wide challenge that we were solving for early on with CT&I was balancing experienced and new nurses on any given shift,” Whitney explained. “Susan leveraged Dr. Patricia Benner’s ‘novice to expert framework’ theory and helped us operationalize that through Timpani in order to balance proficiency across a 28-day schedule. She collaborated with us to develop the Talent Profile so Timpani can better orchestrate a schedule and achieve a balanced number of novice and expert nurses on every shift.”

Timpani is currently in operation at nine HCA Healthcare facilities, with 21 additional facilities preparing to launch the solution and another 20 implementations planned for the first half of 2024.

In addition, under Dr. Patton’s guiding eye, CT&I-led education is both agile and iterative. Try it, test it, improve it and repeat: it’s her modus operandi. She challenges her team to continually think about the end user and how they can easily access information or leverage a new tool amid the change. For example, Susan encourages the team to think about how, in every experience throughout a provider’s day, they can access their education within the platform that they are using, such as Timpani. Dr. Patton led the development of new training and learning models to support staff with tools and learning resources before they need them. In an era of bite-sized learning, and training when and where users need it, her e-learning solutions deliver.

Advice from the innovator

Though Dr. Patton has been a leader in healthcare and learning for several decades, her modest mindset always leads her back to the importance of interprofessional collaboration.

“In CT&I, we really have a sense of the contribution that every person can make, and we honor that. We take advantage of the talents that each member of the team brings,” said Dr. Patton.

Dr. Patton encourages everyone to be on the forefront of innovation. She believes everyone should continue to evolve to a place where they feel comfortable to raise their hands and offer a way to do things differently.

Dr. Patton shares the importance of taking risks, especially when considering a career in healthcare or expanding upon your healthcare career. “You don’t always know exactly what needs to be done, what experiences and talents are needed, but the willingness to step out there and take a risk will make all the difference in your career and where it goes.”