Anna Cerra is currently the Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of Patient Care Services for the Magnet designated Greenwich Hospital, Yale New Haven Health. She has led her team in establishing an environment of excellence, and contributing to the superior clinical outcomes in patient care.

Anna’s personal journey began when she moved to the United States as a young elementary school student from Italy, not speaking a word of English. She quickly had to assimilate into a new culture, and it was pure determination and will that drove her to succeed. Anna has devoted herself to giving back and as a result, she has been a constant inspiration of “you can do it” to everyone around her.

Her career began in New York, and was successively followed by management positions in Critical Care and Ambulatory Surgery. She subsequently joined Greenwich Hospital in 1999, an affiliate of Yale New Haven Health, and served as the Director of Surgical Services and as Executive Director of Women’s and Children’s Services. Anna has been instrumental in the growth of these service lines and their standardization within Yale New Haven Health.

Anna has successfully initiated the Daisy Program, to honor nurses and received the prestigious Magnet designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) for the second time, on September 15, 2021. Dr. Cerra sits on the Boards of the Connecticut Hospital Association for Patient Care Quality, Sacred Heart University and Chairs the Patient and Family Advisory Council at CHA. Dr. Cerra is appointed to one of 12 positions on the CICIAMS Pan American International Nurse Consulting Team on Best Practices, as the expert consultant on Hospital Administration. The CICIAMS Pan American International Nurse Consulting Team is an international committee of Catholic nurses who advise 150 Catholic hospitals around the world on evidence-based best practices

In addition to a Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Health Care Administration, and a Master’s in Nursing, Dr. Cerra earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from Case Western Reserve University. Anna completed the Samuel H. and Maria Miller Fellowship in the Shaughnessy Nurse Leadership Academy Post-Doctoral Program, at Case Western Reserve University, May 2021. She will be presenting her Post-Doctoral research on “nurse leadership spiritual resilience at the 2022 World Congress. Anna was also contacted by the United Nations to work on building resilience on the International Human Trafficking task force. Dr. Cerra and her husband, Vincenzo, moved to Greenwich in 2012 and have one son, Massimo, and a soon to be daughter-n-law Julianna.

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