Becker’s Hospital Review has named six leaders from Sanford Health and Good Samaritan to its most recent list of hospital and health system chief nursing officers to know.
Erica DeBoer (Sanford Health), Kelly Hefti (Sioux Falls), Wendy Kopp (Bismarck), Theresa Larson (Fargo), DeeAndra Sandgren (Good Samaritan) and Amy Thiesse (Sioux Falls) are among the 274 CNOs included on the 2025 list.
As the leaders of nursing strategy, CNOs take on critical challenges such as addressing staffing shortages, managing nursing budgets and creating meaningful professional development pathways for the next generation of nurses. Beyond overseeing nursing departments, these executives lead innovative initiatives that elevate care quality and strengthen clinical excellence across their organizations. Blending hands-on clinical expertise and executive leadership, CNOs play an essential role in advancing health care and supporting the nurses who deliver care every day.
DeBoer is CNO for Sanford Health, which serves more than one million patients and is the largest rural health system in the country. In her role, she has oversight of more than 11,000 nurses across the post-acute, ambulatory and inpatient settings. She has been instrumental in leading systemwide initiatives aimed at leveraging technology, AI and automation to solve for unprecedented nursing workforce shortages. She has also helped to lead an expansion of workforce development programs to build a stronger pipeline of the next generation of caregivers. DeBoer brings approximately 30 years of experience as a front-line registered nurse, including positions in critical care, clinical leadership and education. Most recently, she was Sanford Health’s senior executive director of nursing and clinical services and clinical informatics…