About
In her current role as the Director of Category Management and Value Analysis, she is responsible for leading a team that contracts medical supplies, equipment, technologies, devices, purchased services and related ancillary services across the health system for optimal value. Her team collaborates with clinical service line leadership, medical staff, nursing, and the Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) to ensure cost effective utilization of products, including medical surgical supplies and capital equipment, while maintaining or improving the quality of patient care. Dickens has extensive experience in project management and her foundation in lean six sigma has served as the catalyst for many process improvements including enhancing bedside shift report and streamlining nursing workflows through the development of a virtual nursing program.
How their research is transforming health care
The cost of healthcare operations is steadily on the rise. A focus on improving patient flow can help reduce costs and improve patient care. Discharge delays can negatively impact all areas of hospital operations and efficient patient throughput. Dickens is Co-Principal Investigator for a research study that focuses on implementing a model that includes patients and families as full partners in the discharge planning process. Medication errors occur frequently in healthcare and their severity can range from minimal to catastrophic. A high number of interruptions can lead to medication errors. Dickens is the Co- Principal Investigator for a research study that examines the intervention of mindfulness, aromatherapy and visual cues to increase human resilience and decrease interruptions during the medication administration process. The demand for nursing services is outpacing the current supply of nurses. Virtual nurses are an innovative way to augment care provided by the bedside clinical teams. Dickens launched the first Virtual Care Partner program at Prisma Health which provides virtual nursing support to patients and the clinical bedside team. Dickens has plans to begin research on the program as she looks to scale the program across Prisma Health.
Health research keywords
Human factors engineering, nursing excellence, discharge times, medication administration, virual nursing
