Ms. Cassingham’s 22-year nursing career includes 17 years in management and the last seven as Saddleback Medical Center’s CNO. In addition to nursing services, she oversees the comprehensive cancer program, rehabilitation therapies, imaging and volunteer services. Her many accomplishments include maintaining registered nurse turnover below national benchmarks, earning consecutive Magnet nurse excellence designations and leading multi-unit, multi-service line reorganization to maximize growth in key clinical areas. She developed and implemented an infrastructure to promote nurse-driven participation in evidence-based practice, tripling the number of best practices in process over two years. She also created a new clinical supervisor role for nurse manager succession planning. Ms. Cassingham started an upskilling program for non-clinical employees to train as patient care assistants, created a short-stay unit to improve patient throughput, and led a multi-campus Lean workshop for MemorialCare to develop a registered nurse clinical advancement program. In addition to helping new nursing graduates transition to their clinical and patient care roles, she assists them in adapting to their roles psychologically, socially and emotionally. She is also a member of the Association of California Nurse Leaders board. Among her accolades are the MemorialCare “Living Out Leadership Award” for contributions to the betterment of employees, patients and the community, and the California state senator selecting her as “Woman of the Year.”
