Karen M. Mayer, PhD, MHA, RN, NEA-BC, FACHE, is the Vice President of Patient Care Services & CNO of Rush Oak Park Hospital (ROPH) and Assistant Professor of Rush University College of Nursing. She is responsible for nursing and all therapies for the inpatient and outpatient departments of ROPH. The ROPH nursing innovations were recognized as an exemplar in it’s American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet® designation. Past hospital affiliations were progressive leadership positions with Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, a critical care RN with Resurrection Hospital and Loyola University Medical Center, and ICU Clinical Nurse Manager at Appleton Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin. Mayer is a Quality Advisor for Dominican University and Lewis University. She is also on the Publications Committee for the AONE publication, The Voice of Nursing Leadership. She has published the strategies in optimizing the empowerment of nurses in her article, Mayer, K. & Start, R. (2017). Empowerment in action: Creating a culture of top-down decision-making. Voice of Nursing Leadership, July, 14-16, and a national speaker on topics of nursing millennial leadership, expanded roles of Advance Practice Registered Nurses, the success of a Clinical Nurse Leader bedside model of care, and the expansion of clinical site availability for nursing students. Mayer is also an ANCC surveyor for Magnet® accreditation.
