Ms. Cruz oversees five departments at Carson Valley Health, including patient advocacy, compliance, infection control and clinical analysts. Over her 11-year tenure, she has grown the risk and quality program from a one-person team to a robust department. She leads several key initiatives such as the medication safety committee, ethics committee and readmissions focus group. She has also led the adaptation of root cause analysis and actions methodology specifically for a critical access hospital. Her antimicrobial stewardship program earned national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognition as one of only 12 critical access hospitals meeting all best practice elements. She also implemented a readmission reduction program that improved the hospital’s CMS star rating from 2 to 4 stars between 2022 and 2024. A recognized leader statewide, Ms. Cruz was named a “Healthcare Educator Hero” by Nevada Business Magazine in 2022.
