Autumn Marie Bardisa, a 29-year-old resident of 7 Pinto Drive in Palm Coast who impersonated an emergency room nurse at AdventHealth Palm Coast’s two hospitals, was arrested on 14 felony charges on Tuesday and is being held at the Flagler County jail on $70,000 bond.
Bardisa worked at the hospitals from July 3, 2023 to Jan. 22, 2025, when she was fired. During her employment, she had documented contact as a nurse with 4,486 patients, according to the investigation.
The arrest followed an extensive investigation led by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office that ended up involving the federal Department of Health and the state Department of Health, after AdventHealth officials initially provided limited information, citing privacy laws.
The chief nursing officer at AdventHealth Palm Coast brought the allegations to authorities in January and March after she was tasked with conducting an internal investigation on Bardisa, once she was informed that Bardisa was possibly not licensed as a nurse.
Bardisa was going by the name of Autumn “Ruba” Hood, whose license as a registered nurse Bardisa had fraudulently obtained, according to her arrest report. Bardisa is also alleged to have sold prescription medication to another employee (Semaglutide, commonly referred to as Ozempic) and that Bardisa had administered birth control injections to another employee.
Bardisa had been hired on July 3, 2023 as an advanced nurse technician working under the supervision of registered and licensed practical nurses. She had described herself as an “Education First” registered nurse on her application, but had not passed a required test to be so licensed.
She was expected to get her license as a condition of employment, according to her arrest report. She claimed to the Human Resources Department that she’d taken the test on Aug. 15, 2023, and that she’d passed it: she informed Human Resources in mid-October, producing what appeared to be a valid license number. The number belonged to Autumn Hood. Bardisa told the hospital that her license number may not match immediately, because she claimed to have just gotten married and gave a new name: Autumn Rubba.
HR asked her to upload her marriage license to an internal Advent Health database. The license “was later determined to have never been completed,” the investigative report states.
“Advent Health failed to immediately identify that Autumn had never uploaded the marriage license and did not require documentation on why the licensing dates did not match between Autumn Bardisa and Autumn Hood,” the investigative report by sheriff’s detective Adam Barkoskie states. “Due to Autumn Bardisa’s fraudulent use of another person’s identification information, and Advent Health’s oversight on the discrepancies, Autumn was allowed to start the Nurse Residency Program where she graduated on Thursday, June 20, 2024, and accepted a position as a Registered Nurse at Advent Health.”
Bardisa was offered a promotion to Charge Nurse in early January 2025, prompting questions from her colleagues. “An unidentified nurse checked the status of Autumn’s license and discovered that the only license that Autumn Bardisa had was a delinquent Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) license” that had expired in May 2024.
“This prompted Advent Health to start an inquiry which led to asking Autumn Bardisa for her pre-requested marriage license to confirm her licensed identity,” the investigative report states. “Autumn gave several excuses and ultimately could not provide the documentation and was terminated on Wednesday, January 22, 2025.”
Investigators interviewed the real Autumn Hood. Hood told them that her own maiden name was Rubba, that she’d attended the same college as Bardisa, but that she did not know her personally. She had recently married and changed her name to Hood. Hood happens to be an employee of AdventHealth as well, but elsewhere in Florida. The company had not provided her with information about the identity theft, she told investigators–nor had she given permission to anyone to use her identity.
A federal agent requested and was granted “a subpoena from his own legal counsel in reference to remaining supporting documentation that had not been turned over by Advent Health,” the investigation states. “The remaining documentation demanded from Advent Health was the identities of the patients that were provided care by Autumn Bardisa while she was fraudulently employed as a Registered Nurse by Advent Health.” The company requested a few extensions to produce the documents, but did so by last Monday (Aug. 4) .
Bardisa faces seven counts of unlicensed practice of a health care professional and seven counts of fraudulent identification. The State Attorney’s Office may yet add charges. She was arrested on Tuesday at 65 Springwood Drive in Palm Coast, where her vehicle had been located by investigative means.
