This blog post is part of a series titled Taking the Lead: An Inside Look at Eskenazi Health's Leadership. Different leaders throughout Eskenazi Health will be featured, giving an inside look at their work roles, backgrounds, passions and even hobbies. We hope you enjoy learning about some of the exceptional leaders Eskenazi Health is proud to employ.

Alisha Jessup has been a hard-working nurse for 16 years and has served in nursing leadership roles for the last dozen years, most recently at Eskenazi Health Center, where she has led efforts to develop and implement population health strategies to improve patient outcomes. 

Since arriving at Eskenazi Health in 2013, Jessup has taken on various leadership roles in directing population health efforts and nursing leadership for primary care. As the Nursing Clinical Manager for Eskenazi Health Center where she directs over 80 nurses and 13 community health workers throughout Eskenazi Health Center, Jessup is in charge of creating and implementing the nurse’s scope and practice where they work, and she also leads their day-to-day nursing workflows within their practice. For the community health workers she oversees, Jessup instructs them in a variety of programs including WeCare Plus that addresses infant mortality in Indiana, and the Diabetes Impact Project (DIP-IN).

Prior to embarking on her career in nursing, Jessup earned her nursing degree at Marian University and achieved a master’s degree in healthcare administration from Walden University in Minneapolis. She started her nursing career in pediatrics and as a med-surgical and transplant nurse at Riley Hospital for Children in 2004. Four years later she transitioned to a five-year stint as a triage nurse supervisor at IU Health.

Jessup made the move to Eskenazi Health because she was intrigued by the organization’s mission to address the health care needs of the underserved populations in the local community. She was also interested in working to develop the skills of the nurses she leads at Eskenazi Health in order to improve patient outcomes.
  
Her work routine includes nurse meetings at each Eskenazi Health Center sites at least one time per month, and she provides direct support to the nursing staff and community health workers she supervises. She also audits clinical practice for the process of improvements and enjoys encouraging her staff to work at the top of their license. Jessup appreciates seeing the positive impact her efforts have on those she leads and the Eskenazi Health patients she and her nurses work with.

Jessup is committed to ensuring that her staff has all the available tools necessary for them to do their jobs in the never ending effort to improve patient outcomes. She is always updating her staff on new clinical guidelines and practices so they are always serving Eskenazi Health patients to the best of their abilities. 

According to Jessup, her greatest contributions thus far to Eskenazi Health have been the drafting and development of some of the documentation efforts utilized for population health workflows in Epic (Eskenazi Health’s medical records system), and the development of the ambulatory nursing scope of practice document for primary care which aligns her staff’s day-to-day operations. 
An enthusiastic traveler and reader, Jessup enjoys spending time with her husband, her three sons, her identical twin sister and her pet rat terrier dog, Peppee. 

Among her many other duties, Jessup is proud and excited to be a member of the working committee for improving social determinants of health at Eskenazi Health.

When Jessup’s career is behind her, she’d like to be remembered as an educated, compassionate, dedicated, motivational leader that was always willing to help anyone in need.