Elizabeth Scruth

Elizabeth Scruth, PhD, MPH, RN, CCNS, CCRN, FCCM, FCNS, CPHQ, serves a two-year term as immediate past chair of the AACN Certification Corporation board of directors from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2026. She completed a two-year term as chair from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2024, and chair-elect from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2022. She served a one-year term as a director from July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2020, and a three-year term from July 1, 2016, through June 30, 2019. She also served as secretary/treasurer from July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2019.

Scruth is the regional executive director for clinical quality programs, data analytics and tele critical care at Northern California Kaiser Permanente. She holds concurrent positions as an assistant clinical professor (volunteer) for the Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) Program at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and assistant clinical faculty for the CNS program at University of Colorado’s College of Nursing. Scruth held a per-diem critical care nurse transport position for 17 years until the pandemic began. Her professional focus is on improving quality outcomes for all patients by redesigning workflows to ensure evidence-based practice is current and translating research into practice.

Past president of AACN’s South Bay Chapter, San Jose, California, she belongs to the Society of Critical Care Medicine - Nursing Section, Research Section and the Tele Critical Care Section. In addition, she belongs to the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS) and the National Association of HealthCare Quality. In 2019, Scruth was inducted as a fellow of the CNS Institute, and she earned the CNS Preceptor of the year award from NACNS in 2017. In 2022, the Society of Critical Care Medicine awarded Scruth the Norma J. Shoemaker Award for Critical Care Nursing Excellence.

Scruth completed undergraduate degrees, a master’s in nursing and a Master of Public Health at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, as well as a post-graduate program in critical care and cardiovascular nursing - CNS program at UCSF. She earned a PhD from Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, by exploring the validity of risk prediction tools for detecting secondary cardiac events in women who experienced a myocardial infarction.