Gayle Nash, RN, MPH
President & Chief Executive Officer

Gayle Nash is a registered nurse with a Master’s Degree in Health Services Administration and a Master’s Degree in Public Health.  Gayle has over 35 years of experience in nursing, nursing administration, hospital administration, accreditation and quality assurance.  From 2001 to July of 2014, Gayle served as an Integrated Nurse Surveyor for the Joint Commission.  The Joint Commission sets forth nationally recognized standards of care in collaboration with The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services for patient safety and quality.  As a surveyor, through various survey activities, Gayle evaluated healthcare facilities against these nationally recognized standards of practice for purposes of accreditation. 

Moreover, Gayle has been a Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) in multiple facilities and most recently at MountainView Regional Medical Center. As the CNO at MountainView, Gayle was knowledgeable of the standards of care that applied to nurses with regard to providing functioning equipment for a patient care, the responsibility of the Risk Management Department and the Quality Improvement Department relevant to equipment failures. Throughout Gayle’s nursing career, she has been responsible for patient care operations, including quality assurance, conducting root cause analysis and reporting equipment failures to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  Gayle provided education and training for hospitals in preparation for accreditation survey’s, risk management issues, conducting risk assessments, and developing policies and procedures for reporting equipment failures to the FDA.  Gayle further developed plans of corrections for resolving citations when hospitals suffer sanctions for non-reporting. As a hospital accreditation survey educator and trainer, Gayle is knowledgeable of the required compliance standards for Mercy Hospital Fort Smith.  Gayle's thirteen years as a nurse surveyor for The Joint Commission (TJC) tops a thirty-seven year career in clinical nursing, nursing administration, accreditation, and quality assurance. In her previous role as CNO for the New Mexico Department of Health, Gayle surveyed long-term care facilities under the conditions of participation for centers for medicare and medicaid services (CMS).

In a nutshell, Gayle's expertise has its foundation in providing proper guidance and instruction on how to obtain and keep accreditation requirements along with survey preparation, mock surveys, and completing assessments of compliance. Gayle brings twenty-five years of executive experience in hospital administration, and twenty-years of experience in compliance regulation, organization and assessment consulting with the centers for medicare and medicaid as well as the Joint Commission.

EDUCATION:

Gayle has a Master’s Degree in Public Heath from the University of Minnesota, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Health, Services Administration from Ottawa University. Gayle also has an active registered nursing license.