Celebrating Memorial's Quality team during Patient Safety Awareness Week

Patient Safety Awareness Week (March 13-19) serves as a dedicated time and platform for growing awareness about patient safety and recognizing the work already being done. At Memorial, safety and high quality care are our number 1 priority. Please join us in celebrating our Quality team and this year’s theme of “Together we are better, strong, safer.”

Here is a brief look at Memorial’s outstanding Quality Team and Disease-Specific Program Coordinators:

Deirdre Johnson, RN, and Stephanie deGruyter, RN, Quality Coordinators:

Quality improvement can be defined as the framework used to improve healthcare delivered to our patients. Deirdre and Stephanie’s most important responsibility is to ensure our patients and our community receive evidence-based quality care.

The pairs collects and reviews data to identify opportunities to improve the quality of care at Memorial.  This can be done by clinical reviews in mortalities, hospital-acquired conditions, core measures and sepsis. They also participate in Leapfrog data collection and data submission and review for state data, CMS, and The Joint Commission. The public reporting of health care quality data allows our patients, providers, consumers and payors to access information about how we deliver quality in healthcare.

Beth Tracy, RN, Trauma Coordinator

A registered nurse for 30 years, Beth’s clinical experience in both urban and rural emergency departments led her toward trauma program management. She has developed programs from Level I (the highest level of designation) to Level IV at facilities in Austin, San Antonio and El Paso.

Memorial is designated as a Level IV trauma center, and it is Beth’s job to make sure that Memorial stays in compliance with regulatory requirements to maintain our trauma designation and deliver high quality care.

Martina George, RN, Primary Stroke Center Coordinator

New in her role at Memorial, Martina has spent most of her 23 years as a nurse in emergency departments – from large teaching facilities to small community hospitals.

Memorial received The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® and the American Stroke Association’s Heart-Check mark for Primary Stroke Certification in August 2021. Moving forward, Martina’s goal for the stroke program is to continue to build on what is already in place while providing support and education to staff to care for our community. 

Martha Hernandez, RN, Chest Pain Coordinator

Martha has been the Chest Pain Coordinator at Memorial for two years, and has been a nurse for more than 30 years and has worked at MMC here entire career.

She is working with our team to standardize processes in the care of our chest pain patients.  Standardization will help us provide more efficient and effective patient care, which will result in improved organizational outcomes and maintain our status as an accredited Chest Pain Center. All this hard work will help us become the Cardiovascular referral center for all of Southern New Mexico.

Dani Gott, RN, Total Joint Replacement – Hip & Knee Coordinator

A U.S. Army veteran and nurse for four years who was previously the sixth-floor dayshift Team Lead, Dani is very passionate about our Total Joint program and looking forward to enhancing patient outcomes in 2022.

Since 2012, The Joint Commission has recognized our Total Knee and Hip Replacement program with a Gold Seal for the quality of our program as well as our surgical outcomes. We are looking forward in to adding our Total Shoulder replacement patients to the successful program this fall.

Julie Reyes, RN, Sepsis Coordinator

Julie brings a diverse background including Administration, Leadership, Palliative Care/Hospice, Education and Oncology. She plans to use her healthcare experience and MMC partnerships to enhance our current processes with sepsis. These changes will lead to stronger processes and enhanced health outcomes for our community.

Dar Kopp, RN, Bariatric Coordinator

Dar has been in healthcare since she graduated from high school and gravitated toward bariatrics as a former patient herself. It has made a huge difference in her life and fuels her passion to help others.

She is working to maintain Memorial’s accreditation both through Joint Commission and the American College of Surgeons. The team is also always looking to improve and expand our services for bariatrics and weight loss. We are also adding GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) (Heartburn) treatment, which will help many more community members.