Nurse Client Advocates
Our Nurse Client Advocates (NCAs) lead a team of specialists to support you and your family in making smart decisions, focusing on wellness and managing complex health issues. We develop custom plans based on a broad range of experience and specialties, including geriatrics, pediatrics, mental health, care coordination, disability and chronic disease management.
Leadership
Mindy Legler Jones
Founding Principal
mljones@pyxiscare.com Mindy Legler Jones
Founding Principal
mljones@pyxiscare.comMindy Jones’ personal experience with a fragmented healthcare system sparked her passion to build a better way for people to navigate their complex healthcare and wellness needs.
Daily, she pairs this passion for improving lives with health industry expertise and over 20 years of senior corporate leadership including roles as managing director of a healthcare advocacy company and in the pharmaceutical industry.
Her experience cemented her belief that there was a more comprehensive “whole person” view that was not being considered by providers or the industry at large. Today, her vision of a client-centered, robust, integrated care coordination model is being realized through PyxisCare.
PyxisCare nurse-led care teams began healthcare navigation for clients in 2013. The company fills the coordination gap to ensure that the full range of client need is being met, leading to improved health and peace of mind. PyxisCare hires qualified and compassionate registered nurses to lead teams serving clients throughout Texas and in several states.
Mindy holds masters’ degrees from Purdue University and the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also a Texas Certified Guardian, a Certified Senior Advisor and serves on the Board of Directors for Texas Wall Street Women. Mindy was named a “Healthcare Hero” by the Fort Worth Business Press.
Elissa Bell
Systems Administrator
elissa.bell@pyxiscare.com Elissa Bell
Systems Administrator
elissa.bell@pyxiscare.com“As a military patient care technician and systems administrator in hospitals and nursing facilities, I’ve listened to countless stories about the delivery of care and communication. That knowledge has helped me understand how people and systems can function better to serve patient care needs. PyxisCare gives me the opportunity to demonstrate my ‘service before self’ mentality as I guide and improve the technical experience for our nurses and clients.” –Elissa B., PyxisCare Systems Administrator
Not everyone can claim to be a Navy Hospital Corps veteran with more than eight years of direct patient care experience, ten years of information technology (IT) experience and active mother of three. PyxisCare Management’s new Systems Administrator, Elissa Bell, has mastered all of these, in addition to her daily management of systems operations on behalf of PyxisCare clients.
Elissa’s combined experience in patient care and on-the-job experience in IT operations working on EMR systems and system conversion as a Corpsman (E3) in the United States Navy, positions her to not only understand the technical aspects of the job, but to understand her connection to improving lives.
“I was familiar with the term Pyxis, which is a nautical term that was used during my time in the Navy,” said Elissa. “That was just one more connection I had to the brand; it was meant to be.” Working for PyxisCare also allows her to help navigate the “waters” associated with understanding complex applications and operational flow of systems that document care progression and reaching client milestones.
Elissa is a critical thinker, problem solver and inventor, always ready to solve problems and innovate. She was raised to believe in integrity first, service before self, and excellence in and out of the office. Her persistence and drive to support her colleagues make her a perfect fit for the PyxisCare Management team.
Cassie Hopkins
Director of Business Development
cassie.hopkins@pyxiscare.com Cassie Hopkins
Director of Business Development
cassie.hopkins@pyxiscare.com“When I was an oncology nurse, I always worried about my patients after they left the hospital and wondered how they would deal with all the complex questions and decisions coming their way. Who would help them and their families? How would they manage? Above all, PyxisCare is in the business of helping people and I’m excited to be a part of it.”
–Cassie H., PyxisCare Director of Business Development
In nursing school, I learned how to take care of people with complex medical challenges in a clinical setting. As an oncology nurse, every day I learned more about what was needed to help patients and families, well beyond their medical needs. I worried about how these families would take care of their loved ones once they came home – not just medically – but financially and emotionally. Because for most, the medical part of the journey is the first step, but the need for care, expertise and knowledge continues forever.
In addition to my nursing degree, I put my business degree to use, and have been able to expand my expertise in the medical field, working in management, sales and marketing.
Today, as the Director of Business Development for PyxisCare Management, I can contribute to a small company with a big mission. My clinical background, my understanding of the range of needs that our clients have, plus a desire to build relationships allows me to bring everything to my work.
When I heard about PyxisCare, I thought about my grandfather who passed away a few years ago and what this sort of support would have meant for my family. I was hundreds of miles away from my family and couldn’t help them on a day to day basis; they had so much information coming at them that they needed help making good decisions regarding benefits and next steps. I was working and wasn’t available as much as I wanted to be.
So, I’ve seen and felt the stress of dealing with difficulty and pain, while also trying to plan ahead in an unknown situation. The families we work with are often tired; our team comes in and it’s like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders. When I see their visible relief, that’s the most gratifying moment of all.
Duyen Nguyen
Director of Personal Health Nursing
duyen.nguyen@pyxiscare.com Duyen Nguyen
Director of Personal Health Nursing
duyen.nguyen@pyxiscare.com“I enjoy teaching people how to optimize their health and best utilize the healthcare system. I want to help them achieve their health goals and manage their chronic conditions so they don’t end up in the hospital.”
— Duyen Nguyen, Director of Personal Health Nursing
Duyen N. moved more than 8,000 miles, worked 11 part-time jobs to pay her way through nursing school, and spent five years in one of the nation’s busiest hospitals to prepare for her best role yet.
Duyen is PyxisCare Management’s first Personal Health Nurse. The new position is embedded in an employer’s organization and allows Nguyen to proactively engage with a client’s employees, build relationships and collaborate to improve overall health.
“It’s more than coincidence,” Duyen says. “I feel like this role is really meant for me.”
Duyen grew up in Vietnam and was inspired to study nursing at age 16 when her older brother was partially paralyzed in an accident. She admired the way nurses supported his recovery and saw the profession as a way to build a better life.
During nursing school, Duyen met an exchange student who encouraged her to apply for a U.S. student visa. That move led her to enroll in the nursing program at Dallas County’s El Centro College, to take English classes, and then to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from The University of Texas at Arlington.
Since then, Duyen has worked in Parkland Hospital’s psychiatry-medicine and emergency departments and in the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas emergency room. She founded the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Vietnamese American Nurses Association to unite providers and promote community health through outreach, research, education and disease prevention.
Her PyxisCare role draws upon her extensive professional experience while casting her as the team’s health coach rather than a one-time care provider for the employees.
“I enjoy teaching people how to optimize their health and best utilize the healthcare system,” Duyen says. “I want to help them achieve their health goals and manage their chronic conditions so they don’t end up in the hospital.”
Duyen works from an onsite office, scheduling general information sessions and one-on-one meetings to create a personal relationship with employees and understand their health histories, discuss goals and learn whether they have primary care providers. She wants them to “own” their personal medical information and to understand why legal documents like powers of attorney and living wills are needed.
“It’s a smart business decision, too,” she says.
Employees who see a regular primary care provider, eat healthy foods and maintain an active lifestyle generally are happier and more productive at work, Duyen says. Those who are willing to minimize consumption of high-salt, high-sugar foods often can reduce negative effects of chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes. They generally miss less work and have lower insurance costs, she says.
“The employees have been very interested. I told them I want them to live their optimum life and that I will be here for them.”
Board Members
Steve Lewis
CPA, Principal
svlewis@pyxiscare.com Steve Lewis
CPA, Principal
svlewis@pyxiscare.comSteve Lewis has more than 20 years of experience specializing in financial reporting, process improvement, and financial planning and analysis. He has the proven ability to improve financial performance through design and execution of strategic plans with an emphasis in cross-functional solutions and proven mathematical and statistical modeling. Steve uses his unique experience to design and customize the operational systems necessary to support excellence.
Steve and his family live in Euless. When not performing statistical analyses, Steve enjoys traveling with his family, building robots and playing with his Labrador retriever, George.
John Winslow
Board Member
John Winslow
Board Member
John Winslow is a private investor whose five-decade career has spanned business leadership in publicly traded corporations, privately held companies and successful entrepreneurship in information technology (IT) and marketing services.
He built his expertise in establishing IT system frameworks in the complex oil and gas industry as chief information officer of Lear Petroleum; chairman and chief executive officer of Dwight’s EnergyData; and general manager for the oil industry computer services and staffing firm Cutler Williams.
His substantial experience in business management, strategic planning, IT organizational systems consulting, and mergers and acquisitions led him to found The Systems Group, a staffing firm; The Harbour Group, a consulting firm; and TradeOne Marketing, a co-op marketing services firm. His early experience included technical and managerial positions at the University of Texas Medical Branch, NASA and IBM.
Today, his passion is investing in and advising small firms as they develop to their full potential.
Abel Silva
Board Member
Abel Silva
Board Member
Abel Silva, Jr., is president of Validus Technology Group, an IT consulting firm specializing in evaluation, assessment and solutions strategy for IT environments, technology applications and business operations.
His passion and career focus has been in enabling companies to best utilize their technology environments to support business functionality in highly complex environments. He has served as a senior advisor to executive leadership in oil and gas, healthcare, retail, real estate, energy, manufacturing, telecommunications and marketing services.
Before establishing Validus Technology Group in 2009, Abel spent over 20 years in corporate information technology management and operations for international companies such as TEX/CON Oil & Gas/British Petroleum, Pennzoil, Enserch Exploration Inc. and Dalen Resources. He then joined his first IT consultancy, The Harbour Group, where he continued oil and gas IT integration and diversified his portfolio of industries.
Abel received his Master of Science in Management, Computing and Systems from Houston Baptist University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Corpus Christi State University (now Texas A&M at Corpus Christi). He is based in Texas but finds that technology has taken him literally – and virtually – everywhere.
