Celebrating Our People – Meet Chris

After 10 years as an intensive care unit nurse at another Lexington hospital, Chris took a year off to earn his bachelor’s degree in nursing at Eastern Kentucky University, adding a master’s degree later.

He joined the Medical Group nine years ago, and has been a member of the group’s IT committee almost from the beginning. Three years ago, he assumed the title of ambulatory champion—the ambulatory referring to the travel he does for IT training; the champion is self-explanatory.

Chris said he approaches his work in both fields with “servant leadership.” 

“You just approach people with a little bit of humility,” he said. “And from a clinical aspect, my job is to not necessarily direct care for patients, but to understand their perspective—you get a lot of pushback from people if they don’t understand their problem and they don’t understand the reason they have the problem or the reason for the treatment, so they’re not going to be compliant. 

“And the same thing goes with the IT stuff—when I go to help somebody, I understand there are limitations everybody has and I just adjust my approach to them based on their level of experience and try to lead them, but again, to be of service.”

Both his fields are characterized by specialized terminology and Chris said he strives for “plain talk” when seeing patients and providers.

He finds construction-type analogies are helpful, “especially with the men—if we’re talking about blood pressure, it’s a plumbing problem. It resonates with people. I try to make it as plain as I can without using all the extra fancy words that aren’t necessary.”

The jargon translation is not as easy with technology, but he tries, as he helps providers and staff figure out “the bells and whistles” of the Epic system, improve their work flows and more. “I also reference back to, OK, this is what this particular jargon word means and this is what it means in real life. This is what we call it, and this is what it does,” Chris said.

In being honored as APP of the Year for the Medical Group, he won praise for his positive attitude, smile and spirit. “I think I’ve always been a person, ever since I was a kid, that tries to have a good relationship with people, not avoid conflict but to try to meet people on our commonalities,” he said.

Chris, who lives in Jessamine County, wears more hats outside of work, staying active by hiking and, more recently, biking. And he spends time with his family and helps with his daughter’s high school volleyball team, officiating and line judging. “That’s almost like a full-time job,” he said.

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