“We pride ourselves on creating a comfortable environment for in-depth assessment and providing education and consultative services to the entire team.”
Debbie Lombardi Hill, BS, FAHA
Principal
Debbie Hill is a healthcare consultant and advisor with over 25 years of experience in healthcare administration and Center of Excellence development. As an administrator at Advent Health (Orlando, FL), she led the development and growth of the system’s 8-campus neuroscience, neurovascular and spine service lines, including designation as a Primary and Comprehensive Stroke Center. She served as a neuroscience consultant and advisor to the 17-hospital Advent Health Florida Division.
She has worked with health systems, hospitals, physician practices and industry to develop and implement centers of excellence (COEs) in neuroscience, orthopedics and oncology. Since 2008, her primary focus has been on strate-gic development of performance-driven neuroscience and stroke COEs in multi-campus, private and academic med-ical center environments. She has supported single hospital and health systems in the evaluation and development of their primary and/or comprehensive stroke centers and telestroke networks.
Ms. Hill is an invited speaker nationally on topics related to neuroscience and stroke service line development, tel-emedicine in stroke care, stroke program performance measurement, technology adoption, reimbursement and physician alignment strategies. She has published research on national trends in stroke specialist coverage and telestroke. In 2018, she and Sarah Livesay co-founded Stroke Challenges, LLC, to bring needed resources to stroke program leaders.
Ms. Hill has served on The Joint Commission’s Disease-Specific Care Advisory Council. She is a fellow of the Amer-ican Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA). She served on the Board of Directors for the AHA/ASA’s Greater Southeast Affiliate where she chaired a 7-state Healthcare Strategic Initiatives Committee fo-cusing on Cardiovascular and Stroke Systems of Care. She served for four years on the AHA/ASA’s National Advi-sory Committee (chairing the Post-Acute Stroke Subcommittee) and the Greater Southeast Affiliate Research Committee. She current serves on the AHA/ASA Stroke Council, is an author of the AHA/ASA 2021 Updated Sec-ondary Stroke and TIA Prevention Guidelines and is on a CMS Technical Expert Panel developing a quality measure for “Time at Home.”
Sarah Livesay, DNP, APRN, ACNP-BC, ACNS-BC
Clinical Consultant
Sarah Livesay, DNP, APRN, ACNP-BC, CNS-BC, is an Advanced Practice Nurse from Seattle, Washington. Dr. Livesay works as Professor of Nursing and Assistant Dean of Specialty Education in the College of Nursing at Rush University. She has expertise in stroke and neurocritical care clinical care, as well as building and evaluating neurosci-ence service line and clinical programs. In 2018, she co-founded Stroke Challenges, LLC, with Debbie Hill.
Dr. Livesay worked as a Field Reviewer for The Joint Commission from 2009-2015, evaluating Primary and Comprehensive Stroke programs. She often spoke on behalf of The Joint Commission about the stroke center certification standards and the survey experience. She understands the unique challenges that hospitals and stroke coordinators experience during the certification process.
Dr. Livesay graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Regis University in Denver Colorado. Her nursing practice began as a neuroscience nurse, a specialty she has maintained since. She holds a master’s degree in nursing as a CNS from Texas Women’s University. She received her post-masters ACNP and DNP from the Univer-sity of Texas. She is a Professor of Nursing at Rush University and has teaching, research, and administrative re-sponsibilities. She also works as an APRN in the Neuroscience ICU at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr. Livesay speaks locally, nationally and internationally on a variety of topics including stroke and induced hypo-thermia. She has also published in several areas including DNP practice, stroke, and therapeutic temperature modulation. She is currently an officer of the Neurocritical Care Society, Editor of the AANN clinical practice guide-line editorial board and a member of the International Stroke Nursing Symposium Planning Committee.
Wendy Dusenbury PhD, DNP, FNP-BC, AGACNP-BC, ANVP-BC
Clinical Consultant
Wendy Dusenbury is an Advanced Practice Nurse from Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Dusenbury works clinically for the Uni-versity of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee where she works on the inpatient stroke ser-vice, the mobile stroke unit and as the lead nurse practitioner for the inpatient telehealth stroke consult service.
Dr. Dusenbury was a stroke program reviewer for the Joint Commission from 2018-2022 where she reviewed Acute Stroke Ready, Primary, Thrombectomy Capable, and Comprehensive Stroke Centers across the United States. She has a special interest in systems of care along with process and quality improvement.
Dr. Dusenbury graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern Oklahoma State University, a Master of Sci-ence in Nursing (Family Nurse Practitioner) from Wichita State University, a Post-Master’s Certificate as an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Doctor of Nursing Practice from the Univer-sity of Alabama at Birmingham, and PhD from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Wendy complet-ed a post-graduate neurovascular advanced practice fellowship program in 2013 from Arizona State University through the College of Nursing and Health Innovation.
Dr. Dusenbury has experience speaking nationally and internationally on various topics surrounding stroke care and has publications on clinical localization, mobile stroke units, and nursing care of stroke patients. She is the current chair for the State of the Science Nursing Symposium for the American Heart Association, a member of the Cardio-vascular and Stroke Nursing Committee for the American Heart Association, and a Past President of the Associa-tion of Neurovascular Clinicians. She has a wide range of clinical experience as a nurse practitioner to include pri-mary care, pediatrics, neurosurgery, neuro ICU, stroke program management, and acute stroke service both inpa-tient and mobile stroke unit.
Michelle R. Whaley, MSN, CNS, CCNS, ANVP-BC
Clinical Consultant
Michelle Whaley is a fellowship-trained, board certificated acute neurovascular clinical nurse specialist and is cur-rently the Stroke and Neuro Program Coordinator for Sky Ridge Medical Center in Lone Tree, Colorado. She previ-ously served as Comprehensive Stroke Program Coordinator and Director of Advanced Nursing Practice at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, Colorado. Swedish Medical Center was the first Joint Commission Comprehensive Stroke Center in the rocky mountain region. Swedish is the hub for 51 stroke telemedicine sites across a 4-state region.
Ms. Whaley was part of the group of APNs that successfully achieved PSC and CSC certification through the Joint Commission in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2017 at Swedish Medical Center. More recently, she led Sky Ridge Medical Center through a successful Thrombectomy-capable Stroke Center certification. She understands the unique chal-lenges that hospitals and stroke coordinators experience during the certification process and excels in leading in-terdisciplinary teams in performance improvement.
She has served as a consultant to health systems and hospitals across the country seeking Thrombectomy-capable and Comprehensive Stroke Center certification. She has spoken to groups all around the US and interna-tionally on the role of nurses and advanced practice providers in the care of acute stroke patients.
Ms. Whaley is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs with a Master of Science in the field of nursing. She is a licensed advanced practice nurse in Colorado and achieved prescriptive authority in 2011. Michelle completed a post-graduate neurovascular advanced practice fellowship program in 2012 from Arizona State Univer-sity through the College of Nursing and Health Innovation. She has been a stroke coordinator with Swedish Medical Center since 2009. Before that, she worked as a critical care nurse and educator for Memorial Health System in Colorado Springs.
Ms. Whaley is an elected board member of the Association of Neurovascular Clinicians. She served two terms as a member of the governor appointed Colorado Stroke Advisory Board. She is also on the Development Committee of the CSVN Council of the American Heart/American Stroke Association.
Bethany C. Jennings, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, ANVP-BC
Clinical and QA/PI Consultant
Bethany Jennings is the System Stroke Program Director for Ochsner Health in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Ochsner Medical Center program is a nationally recognized stroke program that serves as a regional, comprehensive stroke referral center to 32 telestroke hospital sites across Louisiana.
Ms. Jennings was instrumental in securing Ochsner Medical Center’s Joint Commission Primary Stroke Center (PSC) Certification and, since May 2013, has led their team in achieving Comprehensive Stroke Center (CSC) certification and recertification. Ochsner’s Stroke Program was the first in the Gulf South region to achieve this certification. She has been employed by Ochsner Medical Center since 2003 and has been a member of Ochsner’s Stroke Team since 2006, assuming the position of Stroke Program Director for Ochsner Health System in 2011. In addition to providing consultative services to other network hospital sites to achieve and/or maintain their Primary or Comprehensive Stroke Center certification, Ms. Jennings also oversees stroke quality and performance improvement across Ochsner Health system’s PSCs and CSCs and has developed performance improvement tools that helped streamline data analysis in support of improvement efforts.
Ms. Jennings is a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University with a Doctor of Nursing Practice and the Louisi-ana State University Health Science Center with a Master of Nursing degree. Ms. Jennings is a Family Nurse Practi-tioner and completed a post-graduate neurovascular advanced practice fellowship program in 2021 from Arizona State University through the College of Nursing and Health Innovation.
In 2012, Ms. Jennings co-authored a three-year, $3.87 million project that was funded as part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovations Grant Program. The grant focused on improving patient outcomes and care processes and decreasing cost. She has published and presented on numerous topics including stroke care delivery, stroke quality and performance improvement and stroke center certification. She has also served as Prin-cipal Investigator on multi-center stroke nursing research studies and Sub-investigator on other single and multi-center studies.
Janice Merritt, RN
Clinical Consultant, Neuro Endovascular Nursing
Ms. Merritt spent 14 years as an acute neurovascular clinical nurse and relief charge nurse in the Radiology Department at Swedish Medical Center in in Englewood, Colorado. She provided education across the continuum of acute stroke neuro endovascular care providers, including EMS, ED, imaging, angio suite and neuro critical care staff.
Ms. Merritt has shared experience and best practice with numerous other certified stroke centers developing neuro endovascular competencies. She is passionate in streamlining care and pioneered a weekend nurse position to achieve 24/7 support neuro endovascular and other emergent interventional procedures.
Ms. Merritt was the sole educator and marketer for Colorado’s leading neuro interventionalist practice. She assisted the physicians in setting up new stroke practices in several area hospitals to expand neuro interventional services in their communities. She provided education on the procedures to the hospital staff. She worked as a clinic nurse and assisted neurological assessments of pre and post procedure patients in clinic. She provided education to the staff and facilitated grand rounds, conferences and outreach programs to educate staff involved in acute stroke care. She developed and organized the Nursing Education Day during the national Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS) Conference.
Ms. Merritt has extensive Critical Care experience and has worked in a variety of hospital ICU’s. She has both pediatric and adult ICU nursing experience. During the COVID outbreak she accepted a call to return to the ICU and worked on a COVID ICU unit and in a Neuro ICU.
Ms. Merritt is a graduate of Denver School of Nursing and holds certifications in ACLS, PALS, BLS, ENLS (Emergency Neurological Life Support), ONS, TNLS (Trauma Nurse Leader).
Justine Abram, MSN, RN, CNRN
Clinical Consultant
Justine Abram received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Florida and her Master of Science in Nursing Leadership and Management from the University of Central Florida. She has been a Certified Neuroscience Nurse (CNRN) since 2001. Having spent the last 30 years at UF Health (the University of Florida, Shands Hospital and health system) she has an extensive nursing background in neuroscience including bedside care, teaching, quality, clinical research and program development.
After being a bedside nurse and unit educator, Ms. Abram transitioned to program development and assisted Shands Hospital in obtaining their Level 1 Trauma designation. She was central to the development of policies, pro-cedures, quality outcomes, education of staff and community outreach.
As the hospital’s first Stroke Program Coordinator, Ms. Abram was integral in developing UF Health Shands’ stroke program securing Joint Commission Primary Stroke Center Certification in 2007and later assisting in securing Comprehensive Stroke Center certification. She remained as a Stroke Committee team member while managing one of the Neuro Medicine Stroke units for the past 10 years.
Trained as a Joint Commission Primary Stroke Center and Comprehensive Stroke Center reviewer, Ms. Abram worked as a Field Reviewer for The Joint Commission from 2017-2021, evaluating programs for stroke center certi-fication. She has spoken nationally on a variety of neuroscience topics, has published and has been a long-standing member of the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses (AANN).
Paula J. Meyers, MSN, SCRN
Virtual Stroke Network Consultant
Paula Meyers is a masters prepared nurse and is certified in stroke care nursing. She is currently the System Service Line Director for Virtual Health (for Neuroscience, Oncology and Heart and Vascular services) for OhioHealth’s multi-hospital system and statewide virtual health network in Columbus, OH.
Prior to her system virtual health responsibilities, she was the System Director for OhioHealth’s Stroke Network. She led the development of the network from its beginning to 25 telestroke sites in 2019. In her role she analyzed regional and core markets for stroke care access and was responsible for developing and implementing business strategies to increase volume, revenue and market share.
She engaged and onboarded partner sites and conducted education related to the technology, processes, and acute stroke patient care in the emergency room. She was also responsible for physician relationship management in the virtual stroke network, call schedules, accountabilities, evaluations and credentialing. Her responsibilities included coordination of daily operations of the telemedicine (telestroke) stroke network, management of data abstraction, analysis and case reviews with partner hospitals as well as local and regional EMS outreach and education.
Ms. Meyers has spoken widely on the topic of building and sustaining stroke networks and ensuring quality outcomes and best practice. In 2019, she received the prestigious American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Pulse Award, recognizing medical professionals who exemplify quality patient care and dedication to the fight against heart disease and stroke.
Alex Graves, MSN, ANP, AG-ACNP, ANVP
Clinical Consultant
Alex Graves is an adult and acute care nurse practitioner and manager of the Cerebrovascular Program at St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood, Colorado. St. Anthony hospital has been a certified Joint Commission Comprehensive Stroke Center since 2013 and is the stroke and trauma hub in a 15-hospital system.
Ms. Graves splits her time between direct patient care at St. Anthony Hospital and the manager of stroke coordinators and programs at five hospitals within her region. She has successfully led both primary and comprehensive stroke center certification preparation and site visits.
Ms. Graves graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Washington State University. She started her nursing career in the ED and then completed her master’s degree as an ANP and post-master’s as an AG-ACNP from University of Colorado. She also completed a post-graduate neurovascular advanced practice fellowship program from Arizona State University through the College of Nursing and Health Innovation. Additionally, Ms. Graves has formal training in quality improvement.
Ms. Graves has had the opportunity to speak locally and nationally on numerous topics, including the role of the stroke coordinator, in-hospital stroke and stroke education. She has published in both stroke-related textbooks and journals.
Dale Strong, BS
Data Services Specialist
Dale Strong is the Principal of Spinnaker Health Care Solutions LLC, a data service company, whose mission is to improve patient care by providing healthcare professionals with innovative approaches and processes to better fulfill their goals through a variety of high quality and cost-efficient data services. He is also a Clinical Analyst for Atrium Health’s Neuroscience Institute in Charlotte, NC.
Mr. Strong helps manage, abstract, and analyze the Neuroscience Institute’s Code Stroke Database. He assists stroke coordinators to utilize data for stroke measure reporting, process improvement initiatives, and research. He was part of the team at Carolinas Medical Center that successfully achieved CSC certification through the Joint Commission in 2017, and recertification in 2019. He has also co-authored multiple research manuscripts and abstracts on a variety of topics including stroke outcomes, stroke severity scores, and neuroradiology.
Mr. Strong assisted in a variety of process improvement initiatives and his projects have won awards within Atrium Health’s quality department and have been presented at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s National Forum, and the Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference.
Mr. Strong previously worked for the medical device company, Stryker, as a Neurovascular Data Management Specialist as a part of the Performance Solutions group and as an On-Site Specialist as part of the Endoscopy division. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from Clemson University in Clemson, SC.
Jenevra Foley, MSL, RHIA
Consultant/EPIC Specialist
Jenevra Foley served as the Operations Director for Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Michigan Medicine Comprehensive Stroke Center is a nationally recognized stroke program that serves as a regional, comprehensive stroke referral center in Michigan. She has 10+ years of experience with disease specific care certifications in multiple specialties as well as extensive project management experience. As a certified change practitioner, Ms. Foley is well versed in the people side of any new activity in addition to the strategic and operational components of initiatives and objectives.
Ms. Foley led their team in achieving early Comprehensive Stroke Certification (CSC) in 2014 and recertification in 2016 without citation. The University of Michigan Medicine’s Stroke Program has repeatedly been designated as an American Heart Association Gold Plus stroke hospital, the highest stroke quality designation, and was the first in Michigan to receive the Target Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus award. She also led the development and CSC certification of an affiliate community hospital.
She also developed and led a regional (35 institutions) and national (50 institutions) collaborative related to stroke center certification. She also serves on the American Heart Association Nursing and Rehab Professionals Committee and was a founding chair member of the National Stroke Coordinators Network.
Ms. Foley is an Epic expert. She designed the Epic build for the University of Michigan’s stroke program and led a 9-institution CSC/Epic Collaborative. She is responsible for recognition as a pillar institution for stroke build for stroke center certification, meaningful use and eCQM and in, 2016, helped found the American Heart Association/Epic Workgroup for stroke quality measure build.
Ms. Foley is a graduate of the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Health Information Administration and has her Master of Science in Strategic Leadership. She served in the US Navy in Naval Legal Services and in Operations and functioned as a project team lead for many initiatives in a variety of fields during her career.
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