Dr. Telhiard has served as CNO since 2015, providing strategic and operational oversight for nursing and patient care services across a large continuum that includes a 729-bed medical center with a level 1 trauma center, a 57-bed hospital, a critical access hospital, two freestanding emergency departments and a nursing home. A trained incident commander, she also leads disaster response efforts to ensure continuity of care and regulatory adherence during crises. Dr. Telhiard is known for driving measurable workforce improvements, including revamping compensation, reducing agency nurse utilization dramatically, and lowering nurse turnover while expanding pathways such as accredited transition-to-practice programming and tuition-supported sponsorship models. She also helped establish a centralized patient transfer hub that reduced transfer time from 40 minutes to 10 minutes, and is now leading the expansion of that model across key regional corridors. Her leadership blends Lean performance improvement, academic partnerships and deep community engagement, including founding a patient family advisory council that influenced tangible experience improvements. With more than 30 years at Our Lady of the Lake, she has earned significant recognition, including Southeastern Louisiana University’s “Distinguished Alumnus Award” and statewide and national honors for nurse executive leadership.
