Katlyn Baker, M.S. CCC-SLP

Katlyn Baker, M.S., CCC-SLP is a licensed Speech Language Pathologist who graduated from the College of Saint Rose with both her Bachelors and Masters in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Katlyn began her career in the Capital District of NY, gaining experience in acute care, long term care, and outpatient settings. Katlyn developed a passion for caring for patients with head and neck cancer and worked closely with patients undergoing chemo therapy and radiation treatment. Katlyn identified very early on the need for improved diet modification to support patients with acute and chronic dysphagia. After having their daughter in 2017, Katlyn and her fiancé, Dan returned to her roots, moving back to CT for career advancement and to be closer to family. Katlyn took a position with Hartford Healthcare where she works at an inpatient speech pathologist in a level one trauma center. Katlyn has continued her passion in acute care speech pathology. As part of the surgery and trauma team she continues her passion for caring for others and focusing on acute post-surgical treatment of speech, voice and swallowing disorders. Katlyn is a long term member of the American Speech and Hearing Association and recently the US & Territories IDDSI Reference Group (USTIRG), supporting the only evidenced based framework to modified diets. Katlyn was offered the opportunity to become the project lead for the implementation of IDDSI at Hartford Healthcare. Having supported a system wide transition of modified diets in the past, Katlyn eagerly accepted the challenge of mastering the IDDSI framework, adoption and implementation across the state wide system. Over the course of approximately 2 years and a global pandemic, Katlyn supported the transition of IDDSI in 7 acute care hospitals, 3 long term care sites, an inpatient rehab hospital, over 30 outpatient locations and a home care division. Katlyn has spent the last year and a half presenting her implementation process in CT and neighboring states to support the ongoing adoption of IDDSI across the US.