Hello! Nice to Meet You!
Thanks for taking time to learn a little bit more about Sarah.
Sarah's Story
Sarah Spilman has had a varied career with more than 25 years of experience in a variety of industries, including state government, nonprofit, higher education, and health care. Sarah began her career in state government (Minnesota) by leading a multi-agency effort to write a state legislative report. She then transitioned to the nonprofit setting, where she utilized data to produce marketing materials and research reports for organization members and constituents. After attending graduate school at the University of Iowa, she spent 6 years as a data manager and project director for a longitudinal research study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
From 2012-2020 Sarah worked at a Level I Adult and Level II Pediatric Trauma Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Her main responsibilities included management of all components of the trauma research program, including study design, data collection, statistical analysis, writing, publication submission, and disseminate of research findings. She also was highly involved in data management and surveillance for the trauma registry, PIPS, TQIP, and ACS verification. Sarah has extensive, first-hand experience with trauma program operations in a city with a competitive trauma market.
Since 2021, Sarah has worked as a trauma consultant with Bishop+Associates, assisting trauma centers around the nation in assessing trauma center capacity, developing new trauma centers, and solving financial and operational trauma center challenges. Projects have literally occurred in all parts of the country, from California to South Carolina, Texas to Montana.
Sarah is a highly diligent project manager with unique capabilities in facilitating collaboration, setting goals, managing timelines, overcoming challenges, and seeing the big picture while still focusing on the necessary important details. She has a tremendous and rare talent for understanding data, translating data into written reports and easy-to-understand graphics and presentations, and guiding teams through the entire consultative process.
Sarah holds a master’s degree in sociology, with specialized training in healthcare management (Vanderbilt University) and research methodology (University of Iowa). During her career, Sarah has published 30+ academic papers, contributed to more than 35 regional and national presentations, served as a research mentor for 30 residents and medical students, and worked with more than 100 co-authors from a variety of medical and academic disciplines. Sarah also has 10+ years of experience serving on the boards of nonprofit organizations and is currently a bimonthly volunteer at the food pantry in her local community.
See the Curriculum Vitae for more of Sarah’s accomplishments.
Get to Know Sarah
How would people describe you?
I hope my family and friends would say that I'm smart, dependable, encouraging, organized, and prompt. Clients would say that I am adept at relationship building, meeting facilitation, project management, and effective communication.
Why should clients work with you?
I've been told I have a unique skillset that combines attention to detail with strategic thinking. I can see the forest through the trees, but I also can spend hours examining and understanding the trees! I care about people and I feel honored to work in the field of trauma. I love a good challenge, I thrive on bringing order from chaos, and I value relationships.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I read 100+ fiction novels a year and constantly have my kindle with me so I can utilize every spare minute in line to read a few more pages. I try to exercise and eat well, love to travel, enjoy a good game night, and love to try new foods.
What was your favorite job?
My favorite job was working in the college mailroom (back in the 1990s, when people actually sent and received postal mail). It combined a love of organizing and sorting with the ability to eavesdrop on people's conversations when they came to get their mail!
Tell us about your family...
I have been married to my husband for 25 years. We met in high school and have been through several moves, a military deployment, and a graduate degree for each of us. He works as a senior architect in Des Moines. Our college-aged son is a pre-engineering student who loves to golf, talk about golf, and watch golf (and every other sport) on tv. Our teenage daughter is is active in high school cheerleading, show choir, golf, and youth group. We also have a lazy cat and a energetic black lab.
If you had $10,000 and a passport, where would you go?
I would fly to Italy and split my time between a rented villa in the Tuscan countryside and an ocean-front property on the Mediterranean sea. I would primarily eat, watch people, listen to and learn to speak Italian, and soak up the sunshine (probably while reading a book on my kindle, see above!).