Lynn earned her PhD in Nursing Administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She practiced as a staff nurse on evening and night shifts before beginning her management career which led to more than 35 years in permanent and interim leadership roles. She has served as a Market CNO, Vice President for Patient Care Services, Chief Nursing Officer, and Consultant for hospitals and healthcare systems in transition throughout the United States. Lynn has worked with rural community hospitals; national for-profit systems; not-for-profit, religious systems; and university hospitals.

As Vice President of a national consulting firm, Lynn was responsible for management of the consulting practice and for the domain development of healthcare information systems. The emphasis of her consulting work is the design and implementation of effective, efficient care delivery models.

Lynn served as Project Director for one of 20 Strengthening Hospital Nursing (SHN) grants, a seminal work on the nursing shortage. Funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, the SHN grants were designed to encourage hospitals to undertake institution-wide restructuring to provide better patient care by improving nursing services. This work was notable in bringing nurses to the table as full partners in the care team and on the executive team. It brought focus to the creation of innovative improvements in care delivery models.

Among her professional activities, Lynn has served on the Nursing Advisory Board for several universities and the Editorial Board for Hospital Materials Management Quarterly. She has received several honors including induction into Sigma Theta Tau and Phi Kappa Phi and recognition in Who’s Who in American Nursing. She was awarded a Medical Center Fellowship and a National Institutes of Health Traineeship.