Rita Keating has over 35 years of health care industry experience. She brings a variety of experiences grounded in nursing including public health, quality and regulatory management, various acute care settings, including ICU, Med/Surg, and Same Day Surgery and as a director of a free-standing ophthalmologic surgery center. She has also been involved in electronic health records work flow analysis, adaptation, system build and maintenance for over 15 years.
Prior to joining Associated Eye Care Partners, Rita was the Director of the Ambulatory Surgery Center for Associated Eye Care for ten years. In addition to management of a free-standing ASC, her responsibilities included successfully customizing and implementing the NextGen EHR and a subsequent complete rebuild and major upgrade of all ASC-system templates. Her EHR experience encompasses all aspects of EHR adoption, including workflow analysis and process flows in clinics, surgery centers, and hospitals. Rita was also a member of a national focus group with NextGen in its construction of templates for ambulatory surgery centers.
Previously, Rita worked as Nurse Manager for Med/Surg at Westfields Hospital, a Critical Access hospital in north western Wisconsin, where she was responsible for transitioning the entire staff to an online scheduling system and was a member of an EHR search and evaluation team prior to its going live with Epic. She has a strong background in quality and emphasizes the use of technology to add to safety, quality and data analysis.
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND ACTIVITIES
Rita is a Certified Administrator Surgery Center (CASC) and has served on the CASC exam writing committee. She is a member of MNASCA (Minnesota Ambulatory Surgery Association) and AORN (Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses) and a former board member of the School Nurses of Wisconsin. She served on the Intalere (GPO) Northern Star Alliance Elected Leadership Council and was a member of Sigma Theta Tau.
EDUCATION
Rita earned her bachelor of science degree in nursing from the Viterbo University in La Crosse, WI and her masters of health information and informatics at the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, MN.
