Her Story
About Rosemary
Rosemary Boser, BSN, RN, CNOR, is a perioperative nurse and healthcare quality and patient safety professional with more than 12 years of experience spanning operating room, ambulatory surgery, and endoscopy settings. Her career is grounded in direct clinical practice and strengthened by subsequent experience in quality improvement, regulatory compliance, performance measurement, and systems analysis. She is now focused on bringing that combined perspective to advanced perioperative roles where clinical excellence, reliable operations, team development, and patient safety intersect.
A graduate of the Indiana University South Bend School of Nursing, Rosemary earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and was inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing’s Alpha Chapter as a student. She also attended Sigma’s 42nd Biennial Convention, beginning a pattern of professional learning and engagement that has continued throughout her nursing career.
Rosemary is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Nursing with a concentration in Healthcare Quality and Safety at Southern New Hampshire University. She holds the Certified Perioperative Nurse credential and is actively preparing for the Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality and Certified Professional in Patient Safety certifications.
Her professional foundation was developed in procedural environments where patient outcomes depend on preparation, situational awareness, technical precision, interdisciplinary communication, and the ability to respond effectively when conditions change. Through operating room, ambulatory surgery, and endoscopy practice, she developed experience in surgical workflows, sterile technique, infection prevention, emergency readiness, regulatory compliance, and evidence-based perioperative standards.
Rosemary later expanded that clinical foundation through her work as a Quality and Safety Excellence Nurse supporting population health and ambulatory care. Her responsibilities included clinical outcomes analysis, HEDIS and CMS Stars performance, medical-record review, quality improvement, accreditation readiness, and translating data into actionable information for physicians, clinical teams, and organizational leaders. This experience deepened her understanding of how measurement systems, reporting processes, and operational decisions influence care delivery.
Rather than viewing clinical operations and quality as separate disciplines, Rosemary believes each strengthens the other. Frontline perioperative knowledge makes quality work more clinically meaningful, while quality and safety methods help perioperative teams identify risk, improve workflows, learn from variation, and build more reliable care systems. Her professional interests include perioperative excellence, patient safety, evidence-based practice, High Reliability Organizations, Just Culture, root cause analysis, and performance improvement.
Her professional affiliations include the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses, the Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the United States through its AORN partner program, the National Association for Healthcare Quality, the Indiana Association for Healthcare Quality, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, the National League for Nursing, the Indiana State Nurses Association, and the American Nurses Association.
Rosemary approaches her work with integrity, curiosity, accountability, compassion, and respect for the expertise of every member of the healthcare team. She believes reliable perioperative care is built through strong clinical standards, supported professionals, open communication, and systems designed to learn from the realities of everyday work. Outside her professional life, she enjoys reading, writing poetry, music, and other intellectual and creative pursuits.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rosemary
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to a nursing career grounded in more than 12 years of perioperative practice. Across operating room, ambulatory surgery, and endoscopy settings, I developed a deep understanding of surgical workflows, patient safety, infection prevention, emergency readiness, and interprofessional coordination. Earning the CNOR affirmed that professional foundation. My subsequent experience in healthcare quality expanded my expertise in quality improvement, regulatory compliance, data analysis, root cause analysis, and High Reliability Organization principles. I now bring these perspectives together as I pursue advanced perioperative roles focused on strengthening clinical practice, supporting teams, improving operational reliability, and achieving excellent patient outcomes.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I ever received was: “Stop looking for who made the mistake and start looking for how the system allowed it to happen.” It changed how I understand safety and improvement. Individual accountability matters, but lasting excellence requires systems that make safe practice easier, preserve important clinical signals, and support teams in delivering reliable care.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Learn the work deeply, remain curious, and never assume that being early in your career means you have nothing important to contribute. In perioperative nursing, technical competence is essential, but so are situational awareness, intellectual humility, clear communication, and the willingness to speak when something may affect patient safety. Seek mentors who will challenge and support you, study the evidence behind professional standards, and learn how the entire surgical system works—from scheduling and sterile processing to the operating room, anesthesia, and recovery. Protect your integrity, keep learning, and remember that reliable care is always built by teams.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Perioperative services are navigating workforce strain, increasing clinical complexity, rapid technological change, and persistent pressure to improve access and efficiency without compromising safety. Because surgical care depends on close coordination among scheduling, preoperative services, the operating room, sterile processing, anesthesia, recovery, and procedural teams, weakness in one part of the system can affect the entire patient journey.
The opportunity is to combine frontline perioperative knowledge with evidence-based practice, quality data, and systems thinking. By strengthening workflows, developing staff, improving interdisciplinary coordination, and learning from operational signals before they become adverse outcomes, healthcare organizations can improve safety, patient experience, team experience, and operational reliability together. Quality is not only the responsibility of one department; it is a shared professional practice embedded in everyday care.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are integrity, compassion, accountability, continuous learning, and excellence. Integrity means ensuring that my words, decisions, and actions remain consistent even when circumstances are difficult. Accountability includes owning my decisions, examining my assumptions, and remaining willing to learn. Compassion keeps both the patient and the people delivering care visible within every process.
In perioperative practice, these values become tangible through preparation, clear communication, respect for every team member’s expertise, attention to professional standards, and the willingness to raise a concern when safety may be at risk. In both my work and personal life, I strive to pursue excellence with humility and to leave people and systems stronger than I found them.
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