Exemplifying Leadership— Sandra Rader, Doctor of Nursing Practice ’09
This article was originally published in the Spring 2022 edition of the Chatham Recorder Alumni Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.
It may not have been written in the stars that Sandra Rader, Doctor of Nursing Practice ’09, president of UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, would become a nurse, but it came from an authority all the same. “I have a twin sister, and our mother decided that we would be nurses, and that’s what we did,” Rader laughs.
After high school, Rader graduated from the Jameson Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in New Castle, PA, and worked at Jameson Memorial Hospital as a registered nurse before moving to Warsaw, IN to take positions as a nurse manager and team leader at Koscuisko Community Hospital. During this time, she earned a bachelor’s in nursing from Purdue University, and, later, a master of science in administration from the University of Notre Dame.
In 1999, Rader made a move to UPMC Horizon in Mercer County, PA, working as program director of inpatient and ambulatory nursing services. She then joined UPMC Shadyside as director of inpatient nursing services, and, nine months later, was promoted to chief nursing officer (CNO) and vice-president of patient care services. There, she successfully led efforts for the hospital to achieve Magnet Designation in 2010, 2015, and 2020.
It was during this time that Rader decided to pursue a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. “When I moved into the CNO role at UPMC Shadyside, I really felt like I had an obligation to take that next educational milestone,” she says. Rader researched programs around the city and found Chatham’s online format to be a great fit. “While I would have been required to take less coursework and fewer credits at Pitt, I chose to go to Chatham. It was just a more flexible program.” Rader’s DNP capstone focused, “as you would expect,” around nursing leadership development.
In the years following, Rader’s leadership expanded, overseeing patient care services at UPMC Presbyterian and Shadyside—the largest hospital in Pittsburgh—and eventually becoming chief operating officer of the multi-campus hospital, leading a team of 3,500 nurses and patient care associates. She was promoted to president in January 2022.
“I’m new in my role, and I feel like it’s important to learn different aspects of the organization by spending a lot of time shadowing different departments and employees, from our Starbucks baristas to one of our lead surgeons in the operating room,” says Rader.
“Spending a lot of time with the front-line staff is an absolute priority for me. COVID has certainly presented a lot of challenges in our hospitals, and I’ve been working to keep our operations strong despite the many challenges we are presented with. Our goal is to look at the Great Resignation and make our place one where people want to come to work—we’re calling it the Great Attraction. Our priorities are the patient experience, but also the employee experience. There have been tremendous opportunities for nurses to work very lucrative agency contracts across the country, and it has fueled a whole new set of demands for us as an organization, and responding to those demands and keeping things moving forward for our patients and our staff is another thing I’m focusing on.”
Of all her career accomplishments, Rader is particularly proud of one that happened very recently. “The first Magnet Designation at Shadyside was quite a career accomplishment,” she says. “When I went over to Presby in 2016, people said we’d never accomplish that there. It’s a huge, very complex academic medical center. We see patients who can’t get care anywhere else, or maybe are turned down for transplant or heart surgery in other places across the country. We do great, great work there, and we need to be proud of that work.” The Magnet Recognition Program recognizes healthcare organizations for quality patient care, nursing excellence and innovations in professional nursing practice. Achieving Magnet status is the highest level of honor awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and is recognized nationally as the “gold standard” of nursing excellence. To achieve Magnet Recognition, organizations must pass a rigorous and lengthy process that demands widespread participation from staff. UPMC Presbyterian achieved its Magnet Designation in March 2022.
It’s not surprising that Rader is a staunch advocate of leadership at all levels of nursing. “When I became CNO at Presby, we really had a model of shared leadership, where we brought front-line staff together and listened to their concerns and helped them develop solutions regarding those concerns. Nurses have to feel empowered to influence decision-making, whether it speaks to how they float across the campus or how they design their workflow or how they work alongside physicians. We have some of the best physicians the world, and that has yielded some of the best nurses in the world.”
“I heard a story the other day about a patient who had an aneurysm and had emergency surgery twice,” Rader says. “There were questions about would he have a stroke, did he have a stroke, would he be able to recover. And one of the pictures he shared at the end of his story was that of the nurses letting his dog come in and sit with him for a few minutes. That’s a great thing; it was very comforting for him. They didn’t go up five layers to ask if that was okay, they just did what they felt was right in the moment. That’s a silly story, but it’s really what I mean by empowering nurses.”
Rader’s leadership isn’t confined to healthcare. In 2017, she joined Chatham’s Board of Trustees. “I was honored to be asked,” she says.
“Chatham is a great school, and I have watched phenomenal leadership and growth there over the last several years. The Board has made really tough decisions along the way, and the decisions have been positive and have really fueled the growth of Chatham.”
Rader, a strong proponent of giving back to the community, also serves on the boards of Beckwith Institute for Innovation, Family House, and Westminster College’s board of distinguished visitors.
“I think that Pittsburgh’s communities should be very proud of having Chatham, and we continue to see that students that they put out flourish in their own careers, and that’s a wonderful thing,” she adds.