Appointed to her current role in 2023, Dr. Shepherd leads more than 20,000 nurses across six states. Since her arrival, she spearheaded several key initiatives. These include creating Banner’s first nursing vision statement, refreshing the nursing professional practice model, implementing a new “Mission: Possible” bedside shift report process to improve patient safety outcomes, and significantly improving nurse engagement scores and nursing turnover rate. Her background in clinical informatics and care innovation facilitated the successful launch of bedside device integration, saving more than 2.4 million documentation minutes in 2024 for nurses at the front line. She is leading Arizona’s first conversation on augmented intelligence in nursing education and intersections observed within the healthcare industry. To achieve this, she partners with college and university nursing programs across Arizona to advance conversations around AI use cases in nursing curriculum and AI’s impact upon critical thinking in nurse learning and translation to practice. With 36 years of experience in nonprofit, faith-based and proprietary healthcare systems, Dr. Shepherd developed and launched Arizona’s first acute inpatient hospital-at-home program while co-leading the Covid-19 response for her prior health system’s Arizona and Nevada division.
