Copley Hospital welcomes Patty Launer as the new Infection Preventionist.
Patty comes to Copley at the end of a long career serving in the healthcare arena. Born in Middlebury, Vermont, raised in Rutland, educated at UVM (and later at Castleton State College), Patty has spent the bulk of her career in nursing and in improving the quality of healthcare for patients throughout the state.
She started out as an Anthropology major at UVM, which she describes as the study of people. “I was always interested in healthcare and in serving people,” she said, “and while I never actually took a job in anthropology, it did strengthen my interest in understanding people from different backgrounds and in serving their needs.”
Patty’s first job after graduating from UVM was with the Vermont Achievement Center, working in rehab with kids who were recovering from surgery or dealing with a chronic illness. “I realized right away that I’d found my niche,” she said. “I loved every minute of that work, and it was a big part of the reason I went back to school to get a degree in nursing – specifically, pediatric nursing.”
Over the years, Patty’s career path took her to Dartmouth Hitchcock and Fletcher Allen Hospitals, where she worked as a staff RN. From there she worked with the Vermont Program for Quality Healthcare, an independent, nonprofit organization whose focus is on quality analysis and improvement. Some of this work focused on bringing interdisciplinary teams of healthcare professionals from around the state together with the goal of improving patient care (one such collaborative focused on Healthcare Associated Infections). From there she moved to Bi-State Primary Care, an organization covering Vermont and New Hampshire that provides training and technical assistance to Federally Qualified Health Centers to improve programmatic, clinical, operational, and financial performance. Her work there was also focused on improving the quality of patient care.
“I loved bedside nursing, especially the ability to serve not just the patient but the people that support that patient.” she said, “Having a clinical background helps me better understand how quality improvement and infection prevention can support the work that is happening on the front lines.”
Patty is certified in Healthcare Quality and in Infection Control, passing her infection control exam during the pandemic. She spent the past six years at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital as Director of Quality and as the Infection Preventionist. When the position of Infection Preventionist opened at Copley – closer to home and at an organization that was near and dear to her family’s heart – she made the move. Patty’s work focuses on preventing and mitigating the spread of hospital associated infection.
“Becoming infected during a visit or stay at a hospital can happen anywhere,” she said. “My work involves looking for quality improvements that can be made in all practice areas to reduce and even eliminate the potential for infection to occur.”
Welcome to Copley Patty!