President’s Message

A Message from Karen Kirby, RN, MSN, FACHE
President, Kirby Bates Associates

On behalf of the entire Kirby Bates team, welcome to our new website! Although our look and some of our services are new, this woman owned and operated small business has been serving healthcare organizations for 23 years.

We hope this site is helpful to both current and potential clients, and current and potential candidates. As healthcare professionals who have held executive level nursing and hospital operations positions, our clients and candidates are our colleagues. Our ultimate goal is to support our colleagues in shaping exceptional healthcare leadership teams. Teams that take the lead in ensuring safe, high quality patient care. And, teams that are committed to positive patient and family experiences and the best possible outcomes.

We believe that the best way to achieve this goal is through long term relationships. We measure our success by clients who return for multiple engagements and multiple services. The better we know an organization the better equipped we are to meet their needs. We particularly enjoy working with an organization to conduct a comprehensive organizational assessment, place both interim and permanent leaders, and then provide consulting and coaching services to ensure the success of candidates placed.

Another measure of our success is candidates who become clients. We take great joy in watching our candidates succeed and take on ever increasing responsibility. Our consulting services not only help our clients improve operations and patient care, they also help build internal talent. These services include implementing financial best practices (budgeting, staffing, scheduling, and productivity monitoring), operating room improvement and enhanced operations in multiple other clinical areas. Our coaching services for new nurse executives and new nurse managers also have a tremendous return on investment through improved management performance, longevity in the role, and succession planning.

When it comes to executive search, we focus exclusively on healthcare leadership positions. Our special expertise is in top level nursing and other senior clinical/operational leadership positions. We partner with our clients to recruit top talent and our placements have contributed to the success of hundreds of organizations across the country. Our success comes from knowing what our clients need, our many years in the healthcare field, and our extensive professional network.  As one of our Client Partners so aptly put it, “When we call, our colleagues answer,” and those colleagues become our candidates and frequently our clients and friends.

I hope you take the time to review our entire site to learn about the full range of our services. We want to help you, whether you are a client or a candidate. I am sure you will enjoy learning more about the wonderful people who make up our KBA team and some of our exceptional clients. I also hope you will give us a call if you have any questions or would like more information. We would be delighted to talk to you anytime.

Warmly,

Karen K. Kirby, RN, MSN, FACHE
President & CEO