Senior Managing Consultant, Berkeley Research Group, Healthcare Performance Improvement
By Matt Skoufalos
When Summer Bryant, DNP, RN, CENP, CMSRN, was a high-school student growing up outside of Topeka, Kansas, she recalled exploring “basically every health care career there was except nursing.” The daughter of a recreational therapist and a microbiologist, her first exposure to the world of health care came when she took a job in the dietary department at a local nursing home. Although she enjoyed caring for the people there, the work nurses at the facility did seemed to consist of serving up medication, which “didn’t look exciting” to her as a young woman.
By the time Bryant enrolled at the University of Kansas, she finally began to explore nursing and discovered the career that she would make her own for the next 20 years. In 2000, she earned her bachelor’s degree of science in nursing (BSN) from the University of Kansas. She returned for a master’s degree (MS) in nursing organizational leadership in 2008, and her doctorate of nursing practice (DNP) in 2018.
All along the way, Bryant continued to work at the University of Kansas Health System. Her first assignments included caring for orthopedic, urologic and otolaryngologic patients in the medical-surgical unit.
“They were there with you for just a little bit; then you got to help them go on to a rehab facility and get on their path to getting better,” she said.
Bryant continued to grow her expertise as the facility expanded its service line but remained mostly within the med/surg area. Her reasons for staying included her interest in the patients and the variety of technologies that accompanied the practice.
When she was offered the role of nurse manager in the trauma and general surgery unit, Bryant began participating more with her local chapter of the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses (AMSN). After joining some committees, and eventually the AMSN board of directors, she was elected AMSN president, a role she is currently in her second year of fulfilling.
And in 2019, Bryant took on a different challenge — that of leaving the university medical center to become a senior managing consultant with the healthcare performance improvement division of the Berkeley Research Group. Bryant said it’s been a great opportunity to leverage her doctorate in organizational nursing in addition to her years of experience in the field.
“I went from the manager role to speaking regularly with hospital executives about where they were, where they could go and how could they get there,” she said. “I got to immediately use my new skill set, and be able to capitalize on the knowledge I’ve had through my whole career.”
“I really enjoy what I do at this point,” Bryant said. “I feel like I get to have a bigger impact on health care because I get to travel across the country. I don’t look narrowly anymore. My eye’s on the big picture, as compared to when I first began working as a nurse.”
Bryant also is conscious of the impact that her work in consultancy could have on the nursing profession at large, particularly through the lens of her AMSN leadership roles. When she’s visiting a new hospital, she considers the opportunities she has to influence the direction of her profession on the whole.
“I think AMSN is a really great organization that I don’t think a lot of people know about,” Bryant said. “When I’m out and about, I try to connect some of those dots. One of our goals is to help people see the bigger picture. We have new competencies for medical/surgical nursing, and we hope to use those to help build programs: individual nurses can use them to see where they’re at, and health systems and institutions can use them to perform an evaluation process.”
“In nursing leadership, we’re only as strong as our weakest link,” she said. “When nursing leaders can get those nurses who are caring at the bedside involved in the decision-making process, that’s better for everybody. The nurse has a voice in how that care is provided, the CNO has buy-in from staff to implement those changes and improve outcomes, and it helps decrease nursing turnover.”
Bryant believes that some nurses “just want to get involved” because of the nature of their personalities. As a bedside nurse, she would involve herself in a committee or work group because she wanted to be a problem-solver. She also acknowledges that not every hospital has embraced the same culture of eliciting feedback and participation from its stakeholders “so they know what they need and what the gaps are before everything gets started.”
“I think you have individual initiatives and cultures that build up, so it happens more automatically,” Bryant said. “Now I speak to [different people within an organization], and get to have those conversations. The organizational hierarchy is gone. As consultants, we can bring our experiences from all across the country; we have access to data and colleagues, and we can provide successful ideas for change. We’re the outside objective observer; that 30,000-foot view looking down that can give them that perspective.”
Bryant said she also values the variety of practice areas in which nurses can engage with their coworkers and the field at large. Although she never foresaw herself as a traveling consultant, Bryant believes her best opportunities have come when she took a leap of faith into something new. There’s a lesson in there for anyone looking for an opportunity to grow, she said.
“When someone says, ‘I think you should try this,’ say yes to that,” Bryant said. “It doesn’t hurt to give it a try. And don’t be afraid to speak up; I think I wish I would have been that squeaky wheel a little bit more. The story you tell will be influential when you get to the right person.”
When she’s not traveling on assignment, Bryant spends time with her family and pets. She is a sports enthusiast, especially when it comes to Major League Soccer and college basketball.
Professional Spotlight Nomination
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