Consultants

Tamala A. Shields, RN, MA, LNC, CHSP, CPHRM, CPPS

Clinical Risk Solutions, Inc. President, CEO

Tamala A Shields, RN, MA, LNC, CHSP, CPHRM, CPPS, is a nationally recognized expert in clinical risk management. She has over 30 years of combined clinical, administration, regulatory, accreditation and clinical risk management experience. As a registered nurse and bioethicist, Tamala has a clinical background in labor and delivery, critical care, pediatrics, neonatal, and home health.

She has worked extensively as a national clinical risk consultant with numerous health care clients across the continuum of care, including from acute care, long-term care, surgical/specialty/ASCs, physician practices, and national staffing home health companies. Tamala has received a nursing degree, a Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Management and Organizational Performance, and a Master’s Degree in Bioethics and Healthcare Policy from Loyola University, Chicago, IL. She also received her CPPS (Certified Professional in Patient Safety), CPHRM (Certified Professional in Healthcare Risk Management), CHSP (Certified Healthcare Safety Professional), and Legal Nurse Consultant certification from the ABA. Tamala is a member of ASHRM, NPSF, the Kansas State Board of Nursing, and the Missouri State Board of Nursing.

For the last several years, Tamala has worked directly with the executive and physician leadership teams with some of the largest health care systems in the country. She has been instrumental in helping them to develop effective patient safety structures, improve outcomes and decrease clinical risk exposures, specifically in the high-risk areas of surgery, emergency services, perinatal, and diagnostic imaging.

Tamala’s innovative and solutions-based consulting strategies are designed to address the clinical risk exposures that are unique to each client and their culture. The level of expertise and skills she offers to address professional liability risk from a proactive perspective is unparalleled within the industry. One of her greatest strengths is her deep passion and commitment to improve patient safety at the bedside. Her consultative tool kit consists of conducting clinical Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) organizational assessments and facilitating the redesign of key infrastructural components which support a non-hierarchical environment where every team member is valued for their contribution, and to help organizations achieve a culture that is committed to creating a patient safety-centered model of excellence from the board room to the bedside.

Tamala provides educational offerings and programs to develop physician patient safety leaders, managerial training to conduct ongoing standardized Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) initiatives, and program redesign to create integrated patient safety and quality programs within the organization and medical staff structures, including established performance expectations.

Tamala has extensive expertise in creating a patient safety-centered model of excellence, communication and team building skills, achieving Joint Commission survey readiness, and conducting on-site assessments of high-risk clinical areas. She has worked extensively for the last 20 years to enhance medical staff credentialing, quality, and the peer review process. She has also demonstrated significant leadership with regulatory and corporate compliance, employee safety, environmental safety, and infection control.

Tamala’s consultative mission is focused on improving the delivery of patient care by applying systematic patient safety and quality initiatives to eliminate avoidable medical errors through the application of -

Doing the right thing…every time!