Commencement

Tara McGee-Walker, MSN, RN-BC 

Vice President, Teammate Health and Safety, Advocate Health

2021 MSN Cabarrus College Graduate

She is responsible for leading teammate health and safety for all Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center areas, including Wake Forest Baptist Medical, Wake Forest University School of Medicine and all subsidiaries and Wake Forest Innovation Quarter. Together with her team, she actively works to improve the health and safety of teammates by focusing on synergies and efficiencies and building meaningful relationships and bridging gaps. She has an innovative spirit and is always looking for ways to meet the teammates where they are and takes a proactive approach when working to keep them safe and healthy. Tara designed an electronic survey to automate teammate COVID-19 testing and the return-to-work process. This automation led to improved return to work time by 48 hours.

Prior to joining Wake Forest Baptist, Tara served Director of Teammate Health & Safety, Greater Charlotte. In this role, she created a remote COVID-19 antigen testing program to virtually surveillance close to 5,000 vaccine exempt teammates for signs and symptoms of COVID-19. She also led regional electronic medical record selection, capital request/investment justification and implementation for the SE region, in less than six months. Prior to transitioning to a career in human resources, Tara served as Manager of Clinical Informatics at Atrium Health Greater Charlotte and was integral to the COVID-19 initiatives. She led a team that rapidly designed and improved mobile COVID-19 testing workflows, increasing testing capacity by 40% and then went on to establish the Greater Charlotte area monoclonal antibody clinics providing over 100 treatments per week to teammates and patients sick with COVID-19 symptoms. Tara was also chief of operations for Atrium Health’s mass covid vaccination initiatives. She along with hundreds of clinicians ran the largest mass covid vaccination program in the nation, providing over 100,000 doses of hope in record time.

Tara obtained a Bachelor of Nursing from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master in Nursing Leadership from Cabarrus College of Health Sciences. She is also board certified in nursing informatics and regularly presents at national conferences to showcase innovation happening at Atrium Health. Tara’s passion for healthcare delivery innovation began early in her emergency nursing career. She worked in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team to open the region’s first level 1 pediatric trauma emergency department. When she isn’t working, Tara keeps busy supporting the activities of her 2 young children and husband and serving as a young survivor ambassador for Carolina Breast Friends.