Move In the Right Direction
Susan Wyatt
Senior Advisor
Recently retired from VA where she shared 20 years of passion for excellence in patient care, Susan Wyatt has dual degrees in Biology and Nursing with focused service in Med Surg, Oncology, falls prevention and Safe Patient Handling and Mobility (SPHM). Ms. Wyatt has over a decade of experience in facility SPHM program leadership, serving additionally as the regional lead including New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California since 2012. During this time, she was responsible for developing interdisciplinary SPHM processes, staff and patient education, workflow, product distribution and ergonomic evaluations to identify high risk patient care tasks and solutions to prevent related patient and staff injuries. Most recently, she led development of a multidisciplinary plan to involve all departments in interventions targeting early patient mobility utilizing principles of collective efficacy. Ms. Wyatt co-authored “Integrating Safe Patient Handling and Early Mobility: Combining Quality Initiatives” and has received numerous nursing excellence awards at the facility and VISN levels, including Nursing Legacy. Advanced Practice and Nurse of the Year.. She recently served with an elite team nationally as SME to create a statistically valid VA mobility tool to link a common mobility screening language with SPHM equipment to promote safety and patient mobilization across the care spectrum. Ms. Wyatt led the team in development and filming of simulations to achieve the approved screening tool for use in all VA’s.