Delores O’Connell is a Senior Clinical Education Specialist representing STERIS Corporation supporting Infection Prevention Technology (IPT) Healthcare in the Pacific Northwest. She is responsible for supporting the professional education needs to achieve best practices in infection prevention, sterile processing, surgical and endoscopy environments as it pertains to device processing.
Prior to STERIS, Mrs. O’Connell started her career as a staff nurse and spent 22 years as the Manager / Director of Sterile Processing, Surgical Inventory / SCM and Medical Equipment Logistics for a multi hospital system in the midwest. She has worked as a consultant on several healthcare construction projects assisting in developing a reprocessing department from the blueprint stage to full operation. She was actively involved in her last position with the build of the surgical services interface of the EMR with the OR preference cards for inventory and instrumentation and as an internal business manager for the OR.
She promotes Quality and Lean philosophies alongside management systems and cultural change to improve patient safety while collaboratively working with all stakeholders from clinicians to administrators.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management and Computer Science from the University of Illinois and certifications from, HSPA, SGNA, ASQ, and CBSPD. Most recently she was recognized for her work on the SGNA Gastroenterology Nursing Core Curriculum 6th Edition, and the IAHCSMM Central Service Technical Manual 8th Edition, both as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) and the American Society for Quality (ASQ). She was awarded the 2017 and 2019 Educator of the Year Award from the Golden West Chapter of IAHCSMM and the 2018 Educator of the Year Award from the STERIS Corporation. Delores has presented to local, regional, national, and international continuing education programs and conferences for HSPA, OR Today, APCIC and APIC.