Crystal Beckford is an accomplished healthcare executive with extensive experience in health systems in Maryland and Florida. She has a proven track record in hospital, health plan, long-term care, and health insurance leadership.
In her current role as chief nursing officer (CNO) and vice president of patient care services at Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center (LHDCMC), Beckford collaborates with the clinical team, medical staff, and executive team to develop nursing and clinical strategies that promote quality and operational excellence in clinical operations.
The series highlights healthcare leaders who are prominent figures in their organizations and are making transformational impacts in nursing.
Meet Crystal Beckford, Chief Nursing Officer and Vice President of Patient Care for Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center.
Talk about your role in nursing.
As the CNO and Vice President of Patient Care for Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center, I provide leadership to our nursing and patient care support team members. I provide coaching, direction, support, and leadership to grow current and future leaders. To be an effective CNO, one of my main objectives is to ensure clear and concise communication with team members to remain focused on our goals and outcomes. Most important, I always remind our teams why we’re here—to provide high-quality, safe patient care.
How long have you worked in the nursing field?
I have worked in the nursing field for 32 years. I started my career as a licensed practice nurse for two years and then earned my BSN, RN. To expand my knowledge in health care, I received my master’s in healthcare administration.
Why did you become a nurse?
Since I was about seven years old, I knew I wanted to be a nurse. There were many influential people in my life growing up, and three of them were nurses, whom I admired for their character and work ethic.
What are the most important attributes of today’s nursing leaders?
Flexibility, balance, resilience, humor, humility, passion, and understanding.
What does being a nursing leader mean to you, and what are you most proud of?
Inspiring and influencing others to achieve their greatest potential is truly an honor.
Tell us about your career path and how you ascended to that role.
My first year of nursing was in the medical surgical unit. While at Catholic University, the nuns told us we must complete at least one year of Med/Surg. I quickly learned it wasn’t for me. Critical care was my life’s calling. I was captivated by the equipment, the technology, and the nurses’ knowledge. I practiced in just about every space in critical care, including the intensive care unit, cardiac care unit, open heart surgery, emergency department, and respiratory care unit. I quickly developed strong acumen, knowledge, and skills in critical care. My colleagues saw my potential as a great leader and encouraged me to apply for a managerial role. Once I landed the position, I kept pushing myself to grow in leadership roles because of my passion for the business and the clinical side of healthcare.
I chose Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center to make a difference in my home community. Healthcare equity is a major passion and concern of mine. The hospital has embarked on a $300 million campaign to renovate and expand the nearly 50-year-old campus, including building a women’s health center for inpatient obstetrics services, labor and delivery, and postpartum care. Right now, eight out of ten women have to deliver their baby outside of Prince George’s County, and the area’s maternal mortality rate for Black women is 50 percent higher than the national average. As a nursing leader, my mission is to collectively address health inequities, improve health outcomes, and make meaningful changes within our organization and the community.
What is the most significant challenge facing nursing today?
The most significant challenge facing nursing today is getting more young people interested in this career. In my role at Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center, I’ve made it my mission to speak, teach, coach, and mentor at area nursing schools, historically black colleges and universities, community colleges, and high schools. We offer internship opportunities for students that may lead to future employment. Since approximately 70 percent of our employees (including myself) live within Prince George’s County, we are focused on growing and maintaining our own diverse workforce. One of the reasons I enjoy working here is I’ve felt welcomed the moment I walked through these doors. It has a small southern town feel in a larger community, even though we’re outside Washington, D.C.
As a nursing leader, how are you working to overcome this challenge?
See above. My greatest support is not my words but my actions. I fully support a work-life balance by encouraging my team to take paid time off and offering various types of shifts that fit any lifestyle.
What nursing leader inspires you the most and why?
My former CNO has been my mentor and a source of inspiration for more than 20 years. She is now a COO for a start-up corporation but remains inspirational by being herself. She is smart, wise, humble, and demonstrates humility. She has always been a wonderful person and leader.
What inspirational message would you like to share with the next generation of nurses?
Nothing worth doing is easy. Don’t make five minutes of a bad situation your narrative for the day or your entire career. Instead, focus on the positive and good experiences we have as healthcare workers.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Nursing will always give you more than what you bargained for. Regardless of my title, I am and always will be a nurse.
Robin Geiger, DNP, MSN, APRN, NP-C, FNP-BC, NEA-BC, is an accomplished, results-driven, board-certified nurse executive with over 20 years of hands-on clinical leadership experience. Dr. Geiger’s professional focus is on health equity and clinician advocacy, aiming to increase resilience for healthcare providers, improve quality care and create solid support systems through the ACT (Advocacy. Career. Tools) program for all clinicians within the Ingenovis Health brands.
With a long-standing history of assembling impactful and forward-thinking teams emphasizing improving healthcare quality and increasing patient safety, Dr. Geiger’s vast experience includes accreditation and developing policies to support foundational programs through assessment and data analysis.
She previously served as associate dean of academic affairs for the National University School of Health Professions and focused on strategic planning, clinical program development, and academic operations.
The series highlights healthcare leaders who are prominent figures in their organizations and are making transformational impacts in nursing.
Meet Dr. Robin Geiger, Senior Vice President of Clinician Advocacy of Ingenovis Health.
Talk about your role in nursing.
As senior vice president of clinician advocacy for Ingenovis Health, I’m pleased to lead our ACT program focused on clinician well-being, resilience, and support. I hold board certification as a nurse executive advanced (NEA-BC) and chair our Chief Nurse Advisory Board, an interdisciplinary advisory group focused on creating solutions for current frontline clinician challenges.
I support the nursing community as much as possible. I serve as an editor-in-chief for a medical publishing company, focusing on nurse practitioner certification and nursing ethics. I also remain current in clinical experience as a board-certified family nurse practitioner (FNP) and co-founder of an NP-owned concierge practice in North Florida.
How long have you worked in the nursing field?
I’m surprised to say that I have been working in this field for more than 23 years!
Why did you become a nurse?
My interest in nursing peaked at an early age. I would hear stories about my grandmother, who was a nurse midwife; stories of how she helped others heal; and the need that would always exist for people to receive healthcare. I would stare at her nursing picture in which she wore a white dress and cap. She was my earliest influence in nursing, someone who looked like me and that I could relate to.
I started with an initial goal of becoming a certified nursing assistant (CNA). I wanted to handle the most humble and respectful connection of bedside care. I immediately loved it! Being there for some nursing home patients with little-to-no family and supporting them to accomplish daily tasks was important to me. I knew I could grow in nursing and pushed myself to do more.
What are the most important attributes of today’s nursing leaders?
Today’s key attributes for nurse leaders should incorporate an empathetic, resourceful, and advocacy approach. Considering the social climate when engaging new and existing nurses is important. External factors to keep in the forefront include mental health and bandwidth, which stem from work-life balance, something I like to refer to as a “work-life blend” when assigning and delivering care. Being supportive means including flexible options for staffing that align with a nurse’s history, respect for years of service, and include physical, social, and emotional support.
What does being a nursing leader mean to you, and what are you most proud of?
Being a nurse leader means factoring in previous personal experiences of my own and those around me. An excellent example would be the formation of Ingenovis Health’s interdisciplinary Chief Nurse Advisory Board (CNAB). Solid decisions involve a multi-disciplinary approach to healthcare strategy and design. Multi-disciplinary teams provide a more global lens of how decisions impact all, from the social worker to the clinician and all the people that serve the patient.
I am proud to give back to the community by co-founding a concierge health clinic for the under-served population, creating MSN and DNP programs that consider the working nurse, and developing a clinician well-being program to encourage improved work-life blend and foster resilience – the ACT program.
Tell us about your career path and how you ascended to that role.
I’ve touched almost every area of nursing through lived experience, either as faculty, clinician, or leader. My life in nursing began first as an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse, followed by staffing various ICUs, ER, and OR at a level-one trauma hospital. I became a family nurse practitioner in multiple areas, including as an RN first assist in plastics, orthopedics, and general surgery. I have always mentored nurses along the way, and opportunities to serve as lead faculty, director, and associate dean in academia provided me ample opportunity to do so. I received my most impactful leadership training at the Veterans Health Administration. My career has included national leadership roles as VP of clinical care at a non-profit organization and later as Co-Owner/ CEO of a concierge clinic. My current role as senior vice president of clinician advocacy for Ingenovis Health allows me to combine my previous experience to support all clinicians – I enjoy what I do!
What is the most significant challenge facing nursing today?
Recognizing the importance of self-care is always challenging for nurses. I’m also guilty of this from time to time. Nurses are natural givers, and we often neglect the importance of reflecting on challenges, trauma, and the losses we experience. We provide our best care when we reflect on our experiences and learn from them. Covid was challenging, but we didn’t experience initial trauma and burnout with the pandemic. Nurses are strong – we have constantly been challenged. I’m glad we are now focusing on better health for the nurse, something we have needed for quite some time.
As a nursing leader, how are you working to overcome this challenge?
I’m working daily to be an example of incorporating self-care and eliminating stress. Ingenovis Health supports the ability to grow support and enhance the lives of frontline clinicians through the ACT program. I’m proud to lead this program, focused on providing a voice of advocacy, career pathing/ support, and tools to foster better mental and physical health. I think of the program as ongoing conditioning and strengthening to ensure our clinicians are prepared to lend their best selves to caring in various areas within healthcare.
What nursing leader inspires you the most and why?
Dr. Hollier is one of the many nursing leaders that inspires me. I found her certification guidelines and manuals amazingly insightful and well-written from a practical point of view. She inspires my entrepreneurial spirit to create better ways of accomplishing milestones and mentoring others to greatness.
What inspirational message would you like to share with the next generation of nurses?
We are all capable of more. You’ll receive a new challenge when you think you’re comfortable and have it figured out. Grow from each challenge by adding it to your toolbox. You’ll soon have a nice box of tools/ experiences to reach for and share with other nurses.
Allowing yourself to grow through mentorship will open ideas and create life-long connections you didn’t know you needed. Participate in shared governance and nursing associations to strengthen the profession and lend your voice and support.
Finally, consider that one day we will all become patients. You are influencing the future care for your family and yourself. Thinking this way is powerful; this forward-thinking always leads to positive and motivating actions.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
There’s a personal quote I often use, “Everything revolves around the need to receive and deliver education.” This doesn’t apply to academia as it might seem but to life in general. Nurses are life-long learners. We don’t teach emotional and social learning in every education program, but to continue shaping this profession, we must learn how and when to share our stories to inspire others.
Nursing is a second career for Derek J. Flores, RN, CHPN, BS, a hospice nurse in Colorado since 2012.
In 2020 Flores was a featured guest on the TV Show, The Doctors, sharing his expertise on end-of-life hospice care. He’s also written two books to increase knowledge of end-of-life care. Flores’ first book, Seven Keys to a Peaceful Passing, walks patients and families through common challenges and decisions they must make during their hospice journey. His second book, Letter to a Hospice Nurse, celebrates the lives of hospice patients and gives a format for surviving family and friends to process grief.
Flores has a Spanish mother and Mexican father and credits his background, education, and experiences for helping him connect with his patients to provide good outcomes.
The series highlights healthcare leaders who are prominent figures in their organizations and are making transformational impacts in nursing.
Meet Derek Flores, RN, CHPN, BS, and hospice nurse in Colorado.
Talk about your role in nursing.
I’m a hospice nurse case manager in the Denver Metro area. I work with a varying census of patients facing a terminal diagnosis. Besides regularly visiting my patients, I coordinate care between other disciplines, including CNAs, social workers, chaplains, and volunteers. Our team serves a widely diverse community of beautiful people from various backgrounds. Many of my patient visits can be considered ‘routine,’ others unexpectedly are filled with urgency to treat symptoms at the end of life. I work in the world of the ‘dying.’ It is a place and space where the dignity of each person is cherished and celebrated.
How long have you worked in the nursing field?
I earned my LPN in 2011, then passed the NCLEX-RN in 2012 after graduating from Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Nursing is a second career for me. I graduated from Colorado State University in 1991 with a BS in business administration. I spent a dozen years working in various industries in marketing and sales departments. I even had my own business for a few years.
Why did you become a nurse?
The seeds for me becoming a hospice nurse were sewn while observing both of my parents care for their aging, then dying parents. The love and compassion I saw from them was an inspiration. My mother, whose name is Crisela, has family roots in Spain. The Archuleta family arrived in Mexico in the 17th Century, then migrated to northern New Mexico, where they were farmers and ranchers. My mother’s first language was Spanish. She worked as an elementary school teacher in Pueblo, Colorado for many years before retiring. My earliest memories are of my mom and grandma speaking Spanish in the kitchen while the smells of a delicious dinner were in the air. The love, devotion, and endurance she showed in the care of her parents moved my heart. My mother and her siblings cared for Grandma Rita and Grandpa Ambrosio for fifteen years before Grandma passed peacefully at the age of 103.
My dad’s family was from southern Texas and Mexico. My late father, Jim, worked as a teacher specializing in special education. He was also a former Green Beret, champion runner, and weight lifter. He showed compassion for his students and the tenderness he had in the care of his parents at the end of their life. My parents were the first generation to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees, breaking down societal barriers during my formative years in the 1970s and 80s. Their example set a standard for pursuing higher education and service to others.
I began the journey to become a nurse during a difficult period of my life as I turned 40 years old. During this time, I began to work as a CNA. My experience as a CNA helped form me into a well-rounded nurse. I learned how to provide basic care to my patients, who often lived in difficult conditions. After watching some of my supervising nurses do their work, I realized, ‘I can do that’! The next thing I knew, I was in nursing school. My family’s example of hard work and never giving up helped me make a career change.
What are the most important attributes of today’s nursing leaders?
In the hospice environment of today, a nursing leader has many hats to wear. In nursing school, we are taught to become multitaskers. As a hospice nurse case manager, I lead my interdisciplinary team by being responsive and communicative. If someone asks me a question, I respond as quickly as possible. I like surprising people with very quick responses. This level of communication sets a ‘Nursing Leader’ apart.
A hospice organization is multi-faceted with clinical, administrative, and management pieces. The clinical part of my work is also just as important because our patients depend on us to manage symptoms in often very stressful situations. When this happens, everyone looks to us for good nursing judgment, a cool head, and a soft heart.
What does being a nursing leader mean to you, and what are you most proud of?
I have been and will probably always be a bedside hospice nurse because my personality makeup doesn’t do well behind a desk or in the same location all day. I work out of my car, driving to each patient’s location. I lead my hospice team as a case manager by being attentive to my patients and team. My hope is they are inspired and motivated by my actions.
I’m most grateful for recognizing that nursing is a vocation I have been called to do. It’s rare that I don’t feel I have contributed to someone going through the most difficult time in their life. I’m most proud that I live out the legacy of my parents, Jim and Cris. Their example of serving others drives me each day. I’ve always wanted them to be proud of me.
Tell us about your career path and how you ascended to that role.
I’ve alternated throughout my career in hospice between case management and on-call roles with both for-profit and not-for-profit companies. The caseloads in some hospices can exceed twenty patients, so my career path has been marked by individual experiences with patients in difficult situations and measured by how I assisted them to be free of the symptom or symptoms they were struggling with.
Hospice nursing can be very emotionally trying, so I have taken sabbaticals by working in pediatric home health. I found that medically challenged children bring joy to everyone around them. They have helped heal my heart when I needed it most, preparing me to return to hospice nursing to do the work I’m called to do.
What is the most significant challenge facing nursing today?
My nursing work must be completed within a limited amount of time. There isn’t any wiggle room for this, so I can’t even list this as a challenge. It simply has to get done, no matter what. I never have a day like the previous one, so planning every moment of my week is almost impossible. I always have to try and stay ahead of the next patient emergency or death by pushing to get tasks done in the moment. I know if I don’t get something done now, it might not get done at all.
My family is most important to me. I am recently married at 54 to a wonderful woman, Kirsten. After many years alone, I now have a wonderful and kind companion. We enjoy our life together, including time with three adult daughters, one lovely granddaughter, and another who is making her debut in a few months. Our hearts are full.
I share my professional challenge of having enough time to meet all my work and personal responsibilities because it is common for hospice nurses to quit after their job takes over their lives. It’s not uncommon to work a full day, kiss your loved one as you arrive home, then head to your home office to work another few hours before you go to bed. It’s super easy to have hospice take over your life. Quite often, hospice nurses are paid on salary, so at some point, you may decide you’re working for a much-reduced rate than you thought you were. Then you choose to leave. The result is that patients get shortchanged by nurses who are rushed to get everything in their day completed. I encourage hospice nurses struggling with situations like this to ask their manager for adjustments. Caseloads can be lightened, geographic work areas can be shrunk to decrease time driving each day, and changes can be made if a manager wants to keep a nurse. Don’t be afraid to speak up if you have difficulty getting everything done.
In the end, if nurses and their managers don’t find solutions, the result can often be rushed nursing visits or nurses who aren’t fully present to their patients because they multitask. Our patients aren’t aware of all of the demands of our positions. They want to share what is happening with themselves on that particular day – needing us to meet their needs.
As a nursing leader, how are you working to overcome this challenge?
I try to put my patients first by being present to them. If I were to fail them by supporting them with my full attention, then not much else matters. I think my efficiency and proficiency in this role have improved over time. I also get up very early in the morning when I have work to do so I don’t take time away from my family.
I also have a mission outside of my bedside nursing practice. I write and publish books to increase knowledge of end-of-life care. My first book is Seven Keys to a Peaceful Passing and my second is Letter to a Hospice Nurse. I’ve also created journals that nurses and families can use to communicate with each other and keep track of important tasks like medication administration.
What nursing leader inspires you the most and why?
I had a colleague named Ted in the first years of my nursing career. I identified with him in several ways. He looked a lot like my dad with his black wavy hair and chocolate brown skin and had a similar background. Seeing another person like me, with Spanish and Indigenous roots, gave me the strength to look outward to solve our patients’ challenges. Ted is one of the most knowledgeable hospice nurses I’ve known. I still use his recommendation to help patients suffering from chronic nausea.
What inspirational message would you like to share with the next generation of nurses?
I’d encourage anyone considering a career in nursing to look deep and find the one thing that fills their heart. If it is helping those in need, you’ll never have a day in nursing where you don’t take away a feeling of satisfaction for your hard work. If you are a young nurse struggling to get traction in your career, please reach out to an experienced nurse to find a solution to your challenges. I’d also suggest that once you have a few years of successful experience, you realize you are a hot commodity. Don’t be afraid to ask for a competitive wage or salary. Negotiate the time off from work you need for your family and yourself. You are in high demand!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Nursing should be a vocation for everyone who chooses to do this work. By finding the intersection of your heart and mind, you’ll never work a day. Instead, you will have a life filled with purpose, struggle, and satisfaction for the benefit of others. You’ll have a life that matters.
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