NATALIE HEIDEL
Tel: 727-415-8720
natalie@caracookconsulting.com
Passionate and engaging performance improvement specialist - Effective problem solver with an expertise in navigating cross-functional environments - Skilled at building relationships and communicating with all organizational levels.
University of Colorado Denver, MBA
University of Michigan, BS Industrial Engineering
BACKGROUND
Natalie Heidel is a former Performance Improvement Specialist with extensive expertise in inpatient flow and bed management operations. Her experience includes working with hospital executives and clinical staff members to improve patient throughput in the hospital setting. Natalie also has an affinity for detail and structure and utilizes this skill set as the project management lead for all Cara Cook Consulting projects.
INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
Over the past 15 years, Natalie has led many performance improvement initiatives involving emergency services, inpatient nursing, and procedural departments at for-profit hospitals, hospital systems, and large academic medical centers. Her recent experience has focused on implementing labor management foundational elements and creating sustainable staffing plans for Emergency Departments.
ENGAGEMENT EXPERIENCE
Designed and implemented Emergency Department staffing grids to align nurse shifts by day of week and hour of day patient volumes, in accordance with target ratios and budget guidelines – annual savings of $2.5M.
Determined new productivity standards for 5 Diagnostics departments by creating zero-based staffing plans – annual savings of $79k. Methodology included leadership interviews, front-line shadowing, and extensive data analysis.
Assessed APP and hospitalist partnership model and recommended reorganization to improve productivity – savings of $530k. Optimized hospitalist admitting shift time based on admission order trends.
Conducted in-person training sessions with 300 variable department leaders to educate on labor management foundations and productivity action planning.
Implemented a patient placement technology system in 16 hospitals, including managing project plans, creating educational materials, and training super-users.
Reduced inpatient admission handoff times from the Emergency Department, from 105 minutes to 34 minutes by collaborating with ED and inpatient nursing staff to design future process.
Created monthly bed management scorecards allowing division executives, hospital leadership teams, and department directors to review trended performance metrics and easily identify focus areas.
Partnered with perioperative leaders to design staffing grids based on block schedules, AORN guidelines, and day of week volume (for pre-op, OR, PACU) – savings of $4.1M to run rate.
REPRESENTATIVE CLIENTS
University of Michigan Health System, Swedish Medical Center, Orlando Health Hospitals, Maine Medical Center, Envision Physician Services, Prisma Health Hospitals, RightSourcing, Abbott Point of Care, AdventHealth – Littleton Adventist Hospital, Bronson Healthcare, Harris Health System