Colleen Sawyer, RN, MS

Senior Associate

Colleen Sawyer, RN, MS is a senior associate with Barrins & Associates Consulting. She consults with psychiatric hospitals nationwide to support them in achieving and maintaining Joint Commission accreditation and CMS compliance. As a consultant, she conducts training, gap analysis, and mock surveys and provides technical assistance on Joint Commission and CMS standards and survey process.

In addition to her Joint Commission consulting experience, Ms. Sawyer is also a former surveyor for the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services. As a CMS surveyor for 20 years, she reviewed inpatient psychiatric services nationwide to evaluate compliance with the Special Conditions of Participation for Psychiatric Hospitals.

Ms. Sawyer also has extensive executive leadership experience in behavioral health. She served as CEO for Hutchings Psychiatric Center and then CEO of Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center, both in upstate New York. Each hospital had almost 200 inpatient beds and served more than 1000 outpatients annually. Prior to her CEO positions, Ms. Sawyer served as Director of Nursing, Medical Staff Quality Assurance Coordinator, and Utilization Review Coordinator at Hutchings Psychiatric Center.

Ms. Sawyer received her master’s degree in nursing administration and her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the State University of New York.

Client feedback: “Colleen’s experience as a CEO and Director of Nursing and her hands-on approach meant so much to our staff! She not only told us what we needed to do to be TJC compliant, she showed us how to do it.”