Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) Program

Read about Dr. Michelle Fennessy, a 1997 graduate of College of The Albemarle’s (COA) ADN program.

Since graduating from College of The Albemarle (COA) in 1997 with her nursing degree, Dr. Fennessy has earned both her master’s and doctorate in nursing. She has also become a renowned expert on how to use patient data more efficiently so healthcare providers can improve patient outcomes. A few years ago, she even created and patented her own medical software, Medical Registry Reporting Solutions LLC, to help hospitals submit data for their quality report cards electronically. “Right now, hospitals collect and submit data manually,” Fennessy said. “They don’t get report cards back for six months. I want to make the data easier to submit so hospitals can learn from it and deliver safe care. We should be able to analyze that data more efficiently,” she added.

In 1999, Fennessy earned her master’s degree in nursing from the Medical University of South Carolina. She spent the next three years working as a clinical nurse specialist and became more data-focused, using it to track patient outcomes. It was during that time she had a revelation. “I realized we needed to find a better way to track outcomes,” Fennessy said. “I had an idea for some software and I thought, this data piece is going to be important, so I applied to doctorate programs.”

While she was working toward her doctorate in nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which she completed in 2011, she worked at University of Chicago Medical Center and developed a medical software program and patented it. “I built this unique system and set up a company,” said Fennessy. “I don’t know how many nurses have patented their ideas.”

Now a nursing professor, Fennessy spends her days teaching her students — and medical professionals seeking her expertise — about the importance of data and how it relates to patient outcomes. “I’m getting nurses to start thinking about the data and be more proactive with it,” she said. “I’m giving them the tools they need to understand not only how the data works, but also how to make that change.”

Fennessy said her time in the ADN program at COA was critical in her professional evolution. “At College of The Albemarle, I learned to be a nurse,” she said. “I think my master’s program taught me how to measure a population of patients and how they were doing. And the PhD helped me think more scientifically and I learned to commercialize my ideas.”