Karen Fugate MSN RNC-NIC, CPHQ is a Performance Improvement Specialist at Tampa General Hospital where she collaborates with a multitude of disciplines in various hospital clinical areas to improve patient care by leading, coaching, and mentoring teams through all phases of performance improvement.
Karen has been in the healthcare quality field for twenty years. Her clinical expertise is in Neonatal Intensive Care where she co-chairs the interdisciplinary Neonatal Best Practice Committee. Karen is associated with the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative (FPQC) where she serves as a member of the Infant Health Subcommittee and recently served as the Nurse Consultant for the Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome statewide quality initiative. Karen has also organized, developed a teaching curriculum, and co-taught multiple FPQC sponsored Quality Improvement workshops throughout Florida.
Karen earned an Associate Degree in Nursing from the University of Charleston in 1980, a BS in Nursing from the University of Phoenix in 1998, and in 2015 completed an MS in Nursing from the University of Central Florida. She is a certified Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse and has been a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) since 2011. Karen is also an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) TeamSTEPPS® Master Trainer.
On a more personal note, Karen is an avid gardener and lover of all outdoor activities, a football fanatic, has a soft spot for all animals especially dogs, wife to Michael, mother to Dylan, and a grandmother to 3 very active grandsons.