Maureen Schaupp Appointed to New ACNO Role

Cleveland Clinic has appointed Maureen Schaupp, MSN, APRN-CNP, CHFN, Associate Chief Nursing Officer for Advanced Practice Nursing and Nursing Quality and Practice.

She succeeds Meredith Foxx, who in 2020 became Cleveland Clinic’s Executive Chief Nursing Officer of the Stanley Shalom Zielony Institute for Nursing Excellence.

In her new role, Schaupp provides leadership for the hospital system’s 2,355 advanced practice nurses, including clinical nurse specialists, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and certified nurse anesthetists.

She also is responsible for directing strategies for assessing quality-related metrics and for optimizing quality and practice within nursing. “I work very closely across the Cleveland Clinic enterprise with other quality and patient safety professionals to make sure that nursing is represented,” Schaupp says.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Dayton and her Master of Science in Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. She was a 2018-2019 Duke/Johnson & Johnson Nurse Leadership Fellow, has participated in Cleveland Clinic’s Leading in Healthcare program, and has frequently served as mentor and preceptor to other nursing caregivers. She is a member of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners; the Ohio Association of Advanced Practice Nurses; the Heart Failure Society of America; and the American Association of Heart Failure Nurses.

Schaupp previously served as Advanced Practice Director at Fairview Hospital, a position that included responsibility for about 60 advanced practice providers, including nurses and physicians assistants.

Foxx heralds Schaupp’s achievements at Cleveland Clinic. “As a leader of advanced practice, she has developed teams and enhanced the quality and experience of the patients she and her teams have served,” Foxx says. “In her role as APP Director at Fairview Hospital, she quickly observed opportunities to enhance the team model of care, and made tremendous strides in enhancing quality, including key metrics of readmissions and length of stay. Maureen’s role in leading advanced practice nursing and nursing quality and practice will be key in achieving our objectives and focusing on what matters most.”

A call to advanced practice

Schaupp sought a career as a nurse practitioner after witnessing an advanced practice nurse’s care in her own family.

“I loved being a nurse, and was drawn to advanced practice nursing because I had some really great experiences with an advanced practice nurse,” Schaupp says. “My mom had multiple sclerosis, and she was cared for here at Cleveland Clinic. One of her primary caregivers was a clinical nurse specialist, Danuta Gogol. I was just in awe of the autonomy that she had — how she was really able to use her own skills to directly impact the care of the patients at such a high level.”

One of Schaupp’s first roles was as a bedside nurse in the cardiac ICU at Fairview Hospital. After becoming a nurse practitioner, she worked at the main campus seeing patients with heart disease.

She still sees patients in the Heart Failure Clinic every week, which she says is an important part of her professional life. “My colleagues and I spend a lot of time training to do what we do, and I love it,” she says.

Schaupp’s first-year goals include identifying where APRNs are most useful and where Cleveland Clinic patients will most benefit from having APRNs on their provider team. “I want to make sure those roles are satisfying for the APRN as well,” she says.

In the context of nursing quality and practice, she says, “I want to continue to ensure that our nurses feel like they have a voice in stepping up and stating when they think they see a problem. I really want to make sure that they feel empowered to stop the line when they see something that is not of the quality that we want.

“I also want to be able to hear from them,” she adds. “They’re the ones doing the work, and they have great insight and ideas. I want to know how they think we can positively influence other opportunities that are identified in nursing practice.”