Association of California Nurse Leaders

A board-certified nurse executive with 36 years of progressive management experience leading patient care operations, ensuring legal and regulatory compliance, developing staff, building clinical programs, improving patient satisfaction and quality outcomes, mitigating cost inefficiencies, controlling budgets, conducting research, and negotiating contracts for major medical centers and teaching hospitals. A self-motivated leader who anticipates and responds to organizational needs. Faculty at private universities, published author, speaker, and internationally recognized expert in patient-and family-centered care, leadership, and faith community nursing.

Christina Bivona-Tellez has broad experience spanning education, advocacy and government relations, clinical care operations, and corporate health product marketing. She is a visionary thought leader who helped start up regional HIE, and initiated Telemedicine solutions for Southern California hospitals. She holds a DNP from the University of San Francisco Executive Leadership program, and a dual MPH from UNC-Chapel Hill and is a Nurse Executive Advanced-Board Certified. She is an assistant professor in the DNP and the HAL MSN programs, teaching courses in informatics, health policy, and bioethics. Christina is the Past President for the Inland Empire ACNL chapter and serves on the Association of California Nurse Leaders Health Policy Committee.

Kathleen Ruccione, PhD, MPH, RN, CPON®, FAPHON, FAAN has extensive experience as a pediatric oncology nurse/health educator with specific expertise in cancer survivorship and supportive care. She has been involved in interprofessional clinical cancer research continuously over four decades in the Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), and serving as Center Nursing Administrator and Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). She served as the inaugural chair of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Nursing Discipline from 2000-2010, and currently co-chairs the COG Return of Research Results Committee, which is charged with returning research results to COG study participants through plain language lay summaries posted on the COG public website. At CHLA, she founded the LIFE Program for cancer survivors and the HOPE Resource Center for Health Education. Both provided clinical oncology services and a platform for research, including CHLA participation in the multi-site Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, and collaboration in qualitative research with the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. Dr. Ruccione co-authored/co-edited two landmark books on childhood cancer survivorship. Another innovation was the development of the award-winning HOPE Web Portal as a searchable database to connect childhood cancer patients and families to information and support services. Since 2015 she has served as Associate Professor in the doctoral program of the Azusa Pacific University School of Nursing in Azusa, CA, where she teaches courses in writing doctoral proposals, writing for publication, visual presentation, and nursing history.