Until you can speak health care’s particular business and financial language, there will always be a limit as to how far you can advance and what you can fix.
Taylor Diani, MSN/MBA, ’23, RN, learned this through experience, surrounded by MBAs whose voices and credentials might be given weight over even her sharpest ideas on nursing and technology. It brought her to—and now through—the MSN Health Organization Leadership/MBA track at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (JHSON). “It has helped shape what I am today,” Diani says.
As director of medical affairs at the medical technology company Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD for short), she has already used the lessons learned at JHSON to add authority and leadership to those ideas as an expert on medical equipment as well as an educator and registered nurse with 15 years of experience in diverse settings.
“Health care is a business and it requires a special skill set to be an effective leader,” Diani explains. The lack of an upper-level degree “was inhibiting my growth.”
“It’s undeniable that innovation can enable safer, simpler, and smarter nursing care.”
Now her voice and knowledge are sought out. In March, for instance, Diani headed to HIMSS 2024, the annual conference of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, to facilitate a panel discussion (featuring April Saathoff, DNP, RN, vice president and chief nursing info officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine) on nursing innovation’s impact on better and more cost-effective care. “It’s undeniable that innovation can enable safer, simpler, and smarter nursing care,” she says.
Diani points to her work in public policy at BD as another example of how her education and experience have put her in a position to advocate for the profession on the national and international levels and even potentially “shape the future of nursing.”
And the Johns Hopkins connection remains strong.
“Johns Hopkins carries a lot of weight in the world. Its contributions to education and health care were a real driver for me,” Diani explains. Her time at JHSON also helped propel her activism within the American Organization of Nursing Leadership, which served as a foundation for the Health Organization Leadership practicums. She adds that the network built as part of the MSN/MBA track has put a lot of that world at her fingertips.
“I made the right choice,” she says.