Joy M. Harrison
DNP, MSN, RN
Director, UT Health Services
Joy M. Harrison, DNP, MSN, RN, joined Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston as the director of UT Health Services and Employee Health in 2021. She has over 30 years of combined nursing and health care experience. The majority of her nursing and health care career had a pediatric focus, where she served as staff nurse, nurse manager, and later held other progressive leadership roles. In one of her past leadership roles, she served as an assistant director of regional operations, where she led the operations of several practice locations and opened up practice sites that provided primary care services to underserved communities.
Harrison received her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) with a concentration in nursing executive leadership and administration from Cizik School of Nursing. Her DNP capstone project was “Reducing the Missed Appointment Rate in an Urban Pediatric Primary Care Site.” She believes that missed clinic appointments impact the timely delivery of patient care, the cost of care, resource utilization, and productivity. She earned a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) with a focus on nurse administration and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from The University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston and received her associate degree in nursing from Houston Community College. In addition, Harrison has earned certificates in quality and safety from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, health care management from the Rice University Executive Education Program, and Six Sigma as a green belt.
Harrison is a member of American Nurses Association, Texas Nurses Association, and American College of Healthcare Executives.
