Our Employees -- Pat's Story

Banner Health is recognized for the quality of our people. Each employee has their own story of why working at Banner is special for them:

• Continually Learning: Pat's Story
• Professionally Dedicated: Dan's Story
• Compassionate to All: Shannon's Story

Continually Learning
Pat Duncan's successful career has been a series of discoveries and Banner Health has supported her as her Journey has taken her from bedside to clinical informatics.

Duncan, who has worked at McKee Medical Center for more than 30 years, never thought she wanted to go into nursing until she went to work at a nursing home. "I just realized what a wonderful calling this is.''

From there, she worked and eventually led various departments at McKee, including ICU, Emergency and Telemonitoring. In the early 1990s, her supervisor asked her to bring an early version of electronic medical records to McKee. "This was another eye opener -- how much I enjoyed working with computers.''

Her career took another twist in 2003 when she became part of a Banner systemwide team to roll out computerized physician-order entry and electronic medical records at Banner Estrella Medical Center.

Banner wanted all of its facilities to help plan for the new state-of-the-art hospital because similar computer systems would eventually be used at all Banner hospitals. Now, Duncan is hard at work helping nurses and physicians use it to improve patient care. "I will always be a nurse,'' Duncan says. "I am just doing it a different way.''