Nancy M. Albert, PhD, CCNS, CHFN, CCRN, NE-BC, FAHA, FCCM, FHFSA, FAAN

Abstract

Nancy M. Albert, PhD, CCNS, CHFN, CCRN, NE-BC, FAHA, FCCM, FHFSA, FAAN, is associate chief nursing officer for Cleveland Clinic’s Office of Nursing Research and Innovation, and a clinical nurse specialist in Cleveland Clinic’s Kaufman Center for Heart Failure in the Heart and Vascular Institute, Cleveland, Ohio. Nancy Albert at a young age was interested in art and pictured herself as a potential artist. However, her sister was also skilled in art and pursued it following high school, which encouraged Nancy to look around at other opportunities that might challenge her. She had been exposed to nurses due to childhood illnesses that had required hospitalization and was struck with the work of nurses and her positive interaction with them. As she looked forward to her own career trajectory, Nancy saw nursing as a powerful way of finding meaning and making an important contribution with her life. Following high school, Nancy entered the Huron Road Hospital School of Nursing in East Cleveland Ohio, and has not looked back since. Throughout her academic and practice journey, Nancy has sought opportunities to construct a career pathway that reflected her own sense of creativity and contribution in health care. Her commitment to her own nursing scholarship has been evidenced in advancing her nursing education from diploma nurse to her PhD in Nursing (with a focus on the study of heart failure) from Kent State University. Nancy’s interest in acute care brought her to practice in the intensive care unit and included a range of acute care roles. After being encouraged by a mentor to take her first leadership role of assistant manager on a dialysis unit, Nancy realized that leadership would become a centerpiece that would drive her nursing career forward and would frame her subsequent nursing contributions. After 14 years at Huron Road Hospital, Nancy sought to link her immense curiosity, her interest in research and knowledge generation, and her budding enthusiasm for innovation and the excitement of a research-grounded medical center, and arrived at the Cleveland Clinic as the coronary care nurse manager. Immediately, she felt the synergy of this setting with her own nursing interests in advancing the science and practice of cardiac care and positively impacting the patient experience. This move would serve as the catalyst for her role as a nurse leader. Nancy moved through a number of accelerating nursing leadership roles and eventually accepted a leadership position in a medical practice setting as a manager of outcomes research in heart failure and the manager of the disease management service that would challenge her leadership development and accelerate her commitment and interest in interdisciplinary practice. Also, it would pique her growing interest in innovation and its role in transforming the future of science and practice. Working in the arena of research, clinical trials and clinical studies prepared her for translating her growing knowledge and insights to advancing the science and practice of nursing at the Cleveland Clinic. And it definitively embedded innovation and creativity into her vision of nursing impact and into her own leadership role. The defining innovation moment for Nancy occurred in an innovation retreat at the Cleveland Clinic held by the innovation consulting company, IDEO, opening her to the dynamics associated with creativity and innovation which would inform her leadership practice going forward. She has carried this innovation dynamic into her subsequent leadership roles and has now incorporated innovation into her title and role as associate chief nursing officer for the Cleveland Clinic’s Office of Nursing Research and Innovation.