Saint Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital issued the following announcement on May 4.
Candice Frix, a registered nurse with a strong background in nursing leadership and quality improvement, has been named Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) for St. Mary’s Health Care System.
Frix comes to St. Mary’s from Piedmont Walton Hospital in Monroe, Ga., where she had served as chief nursing officer from November 2017 until joining St. Mary’s in April. Among her accomplishments, she lists the lowest nursing turnover rate in the Piedmont system for three years in a row, relying on zero agency nurses during the pandemic-stressed years of 2020 and 2021, achieving high scores for quality, patient experience and employee satisfaction, and leading the hospital’s work to become a certified Bariatric Center of Excellence.
“Candice brings the right combination of knowledge, skill, leadership ability and human touch to our system,” said St. Mary’s President and CEO Montez Carter. “Our selection team was especially impressed by her track record for quality excellence as well as nurse recruitment and retention. The fact that she is from our region and has deep roots here is icing on the cake.”
As CNO of St. Mary’s Health Care System, Frix will lead a team of more than 400 nurses in the system’s hospitals in Athens, Lavonia and Greensboro. Together, the hospitals are licensed for 277 inpatient beds, plus emergency departments and surgical services at all three hospitals, as well as birthing centers and critical care units at St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens and St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia.
A resident of Rutledge, Ga., Frix earned her associate degree in nursing at Georgia Perimeter College. She then completed her bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of Texas at Arlington before receiving her master’s degree in nursing administration, also from UT Arlington. Her nursing career began as a staff nurse at Rockdale Medical Center before she moved to Clearview Regional Medical Center, now Piedmont Walton. She progressed into nursing leadership and most recently served as the hospital’s chief nursing officer.
Candice and her husband of almost 12 years, Brian, have two daughters, Cindy, 8, and Taylor, 4. They are members of The Church at Stanton Springs in Social Circle, where Brian is a member of the praise team and Candice serves on the medical team. Candice notes that she was born in Athens and has been spending a lot of time in the community because her daughter is a competitive cheerleader with Omni All Stars Cheer and Tumbling.
Original source can be found here.
Source: Saint Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital
