Protecting Your Practice and Your Facility

Maggie Ortiz has been a Critical Care Registered Nurse for 23 years working primarily in the hospital setting. Maggie holds a Master's Degree in Nursing Leadership. Maggie has worked in rural small hospitals to large Level I hospitals in the US. Her experience includes ER, ICU, Cardiac Cath Lab (Interventional Cardiology) taking heart attack calls, Interventional Radiology with Neuro and Trauma Interventions, and Surgical area pre and post, sedation nurse in various departments. Maggie has worked as a local temporary agency help nurse as well as taken travel contracts in these areas. Maggie spent a short time at a Board of Nursing as an Investigator and after hearing and seeing the lack of due process that was extended to nurses left and became an activist and advocate for nurses. There are 400,000 nurses in Texas and 5 million in the United States so she saw a need and is the CEO of ADVOCATES FOR NURSES PLLC which helps advocate for nurses. Assisting nurses in various capacities working alongside them and their lawyers. Maggie's extensive experience with sedation and a lack of screening criteria for appropriate anesthesia, drove her to create a patient screening tool in her master's degree. This tool assesses the criteria for a patient to have sedation administered by an RN and or by an anesthesia provider. This was piloted and implemented within the organization which improved patient outcomes. Maggie for the last year has worked as a patient advocate working alongside patients and their families during this trying time and seeing the flip side of healthcare. Maggie was also an expert witness for medical malpractice and is an expert for administrative (board of nursing) cases. Maggie is very familiar with the Nurse Practice Act as it pertains to the nurse's license in any state as well as the standard of care in nursing. Maggie continues to be a change-maker by not only acting on what she has experienced in her vast career as a bedside nurse but also from other nurses across the nation. Maggie takes this and works with state and federal representatives to make changes for nurses through policy.