Cheerleaders aren’t only on athletic fields. Kristin DeVries Bolos, a cheerleader in high school and college, took her talent for encouraging others to perform at their best and brought it to the long-term care industry.
It is those efforts that helped earn her an “Inspiration” category award in the inaugural McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards program. She is the director of workforce development for EmpRes Healthcare Management.
The holder of an associate of arts and science degree in nursing and an undergraduate degree from Weber State University, Bolos is a registered nurse who joined Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare’s nonprofit system of hospitals in 1991. That move began her career in labor and delivery, and she later became director of nursing staff for the women’s center.
It was at that point, at the urging of a friend and future colleague, that she joined the long-term care industry in an entrepreneurial endeavor. She worked to educate hospital CEOs about the need for her management company’s services for acute-care patients needing to be discharged.
Bolos joined Sun Healthcare Group in 2006 as its regional director of business development. When it was bought by Genesis HealthCare in 2011, she became that company’s director of corporate compliance. She has been with EmpRes since 2014. In addition to all of her other accomplishments, she has authored multiple patient safety policies and procedures, audit tools and action plans.
In 2021, Bolos and EmpRes worked with the University of Washington to participate in a state-funded program to pair nursing students with an interest in geriatrics with an EmpRes mentor. The pairing, Bolos said, not only would help students practice their skills outside of the classroom but that it also would help “a very tired workforce,” McKnight’s Long-Term Care News previously reported.
It is through those efforts and more that she remains their greatest cheerleader.
The McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards program is jointly administered by McKnight’s Home Care, McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. Honorees were recognized March 7 at a dinner and awards ceremony in Chicago. The program’s Platinum sponsor was MatrixCare. Omnicare was a Silver sponsor, and additional sponsors included Pinnacle Quality Insight, HealthDirect and Sentrics.
Editor’s note: McKnight’s Home Care, McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Senior Living are profiling the McKnight’s 2023 Pinnacle Awards honorees daily in April and May. For additional McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards content, visit this page.
