Leadership
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Carolyn Hansen
Chief Clinical Officer
Carolyn Hansen is the Chief Clinical Officer at Barrett Hospital & HealthCare. She is responsible for managing the nursing and clinical operations departments and oversees most care-delivery departments. Carolyn ensures standards of patient care are met and advises medical staff, department managers, administration, and Board of Directors in matters related to clinical services. She also participates as a member of the senior leadership team for ensuring organizational focus to achieve strategic plan goals and objectives and shares accountability for overall facility results. As the CCO, she ensures compliance with state, federal and other regulations impacting the organization’s licensure and/or accreditation.
Carolyn has been instrumental in developing a patient acuity process and played a key role in the most recent nursing union contract. Additionally, she teaches the Preceptor Class and writes content for it. The Class is designed to meet the learning needs of new health care professionals, as well as the experienced professional who is integrating into Barrett. In her work, Carolyn is motivated by seeing the positive impact of compassionate and high-quality care on the lives of the many patients at Barrett Hospital & HealthCare. Her personal values of integrity, honesty, personal responsibility and accountability, compassion, and fairness are aligned with those of Barrett’s – a large reason why she decided to join the team in 2022.
Prior to joining Barrett Hospital & HealthCare, Carolyn served as Chief Nursing Officer at Bingham Memorial Hospital and Grove Creek Medical Center in Blackfoot, Idaho. With more than 20 years of nursing experience and more than 40 years of experience in healthcare, she has served in roles like Director of Nursing, Medical Provider, and Quality Services Director for a number of different organizations. She was also one of the first certified bariatric nurses in the state of Idaho. Carolyn has also served as a national surveyor and national quality conference speaker, and she was formerly the President of the Nurse Leaders of Idaho. More recently, Carolyn helped to organize the Montana Nurse Leaders Association. During most of her nursing career, she worked as a Family Nurse Practitioner in a geriatric psychiatric unit, county jail, as well as in emergency medicine and urgent care.
Carolyn earned her bachelor’s of science in nursing degree from Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho, and she holds a master’s of science in nursing and Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) status from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts. Carolyn was born and raised on a cattle ranch outside of Miles City, Montana, so working in the Dillon area feels like “coming home.”