As a nurse, for nearly 20 years, I have demonstrated my passion for helping others in their time of need. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced this commitment to saving the lives of others who require the assistance of competent healthcare professionals. The pandemic has only exacerbated the need of selfless healthcare workers who often to the detriment of their own families, look to care for others. Over my nearly two decades within the profession I have seen first-hand, how important high quality of care is to patient outcomes. One such area I have become particularly passionate about is that of substance abuse addiction. Here, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has placed an unprecedented amount of stress of individuals and their families. Healthcare workers are continually putting their lives and families lives in danger, patients are dealing with significant job loss and lack of income, children are dealing with lack of education as schools close, and so forth. All of these elements can often coalesce to create a large burden on individuals within society. This pressure ultimately culminates into a breaking point in which individuals turn to substances to help quell or mitigate the influences of dramatic life changes. Unfortunately, the current healthcare infrastructure is not equipped to properly provide addiction care to those who need it most. As a result, a large portion of my time has been dedicated to reforming the current system related to addiction treatment by providing much more comprehensive care to patients.

To properly lead this change, I will rely heavily on my nearly two decades of leadership experiencing within the healthcare profession. For over a decade, I was a charge nurse supervisor at Hazard Health and Rehab Center. Here, my responsibilities included supervising other charge nurses and nurse aids. I was also responsible for ensuring...…and opioid abuse. As a result the interpersonal team that I will use to implement the change will have a variety of backgrounds including finance, accounting, sales, academicians and healthcare. This diversity of team composition is required to help improve the odds of the implementation of the change. Finance and accounting for example can help explain the financial ramification of the change and how it can ultimately help improve not out the outcomes of the patient but also the profitability of healthcare organizations overall. Nursing team members can provide support as to how the implementation will be handled from a healthcare perspective. Academicians can propose new and unique changes that are heavily based on evidence and academically backed research. This combination of talent can be leveraged to help improve the clinical experience of patients across their entire lifespan. It can also help lower healthcare and treatment costs while simultaneously improving patient…