Speakers

Karen Daley, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN

Karen Daley was re-elected in 2012 as the President of the American Nurses Association (ANA), the nation’s largest nursing organization representing the interests of the nation’s 3.1 million registered nurses. Daley spent more than 26 years as a staff nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. 

As a vocal, nationally recognized advocate for legislation mandating the use of safer needle devices in health care practice settings, she was among those invited to the Oval Office to witness President Clinton sign the "Needlestick Safety Prevention Act" into law on November 6, 2000. 

In addition, Daley served as a Project Principal for the Nurses Education Hepatitis C Project funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as well as a Project Coordinator for a trauma research study conducted by the Harvard Injury Control Center at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Lucian Leape, MD

Lucian Leape, MD, is Adjunct Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and a health policy analyst whose groundbreaking research has focused on patient safety and the quality of care.

Leape is internationally recognized as the leader of the patient safety movement, beginning with the publication of his seminal article “Error in Medicine” in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1994. He is one of the founders of the National Patient Safety Foundation, the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Error, and the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Session on Medical Error.

He was also a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Quality of Care in America Committee, which published “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System” in 1999 and “Crossing the Quality Chasm” in 2001.

Dawn Bazarko, DNP, MPH, RN

Dawn Bazarko is the Senior Vice President of the Center for Nursing Advancement at UnitedHealth Group, which focuses on the deployment of programs to improve nurse engagement, reduce voluntary turnover, promote health and well-being, and support the personal and professional development of the more than 10,000 company nurses. The Center is also engaged with numerous organizations to jointly advance the profession of nursing and realize the aims of the Institute of Medicine’s report: Future of Nursing – leading change and advancing health. She also served as the Primary Investigator for UnitedHealth Group’s novel Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction pilot.

As a published author in peer-reviewed journals, her areas of research focus include the study of holistic health care solutions, clinical quality improvement, and the nursing workforce. In addition to her nursing degree, she holds a master’s in public health, specializing in environmental and occupational health, and a Doctor of Nursing Practice, both from the University of Minnesota.

Chris Goeschel, ScD, MPA, MPS, RN, FAAN

Chris Goeschel is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Strategic Development and Research Initiatives for The Quality and Safety Research Group (QSRG) in the School of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.  Goeschel has a long and successful record in strategic and program development, project management, and education/training for health system leaders at all levels, and a particular interest in health care delivery research to reduce infections.

In 2000, she created a non-profit division at the Michigan Health & Hospital Association dedicated to Quality and Patient Safety Improvement, the “MHA Keystone Center”. She led a major project to reduce infections in ICUs across Michigan, in collaboration with Hopkins Patient Safety Leader Peter Pronovost, and the QSRG. The success of that project fostered a number of national and international projects that are still evolving. Goeschel joined the QSRG in 2006 and helps lead those efforts. She also co-directs the QSRG ACTION II research partnership.

Gerri Lamb, PhD, RN, FAAN

Gerri Lamb is an Associate Professor in Arizona State Univerisity’s (ASU) College of Nursing and Health Innovation and Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Lamb is nationally recognized for her research on care coordination and is a frequent member of many national committees on this topic. She co-chaired both of the Performance Measurement Steering Committees on Care Coordination at the National Quality Forum and serves on quality measurement and education workgroups for the American Academy of Nursing, the Nursing Alliance for Quality, the Physician Consortium on Performance Improvement and the American Board of Internal Medicine. 

Lamb is part of a large collaborative working on expanding interprofessional primary care education. She serves on the board of the American Interprofessional Health Association and represents ASU on the Nexus Innovation Incubator group for the new National Center for Interprofessional Education and Practice. She has extensive experience teaching interprofessional course work for health care professionals, architects, and engineers and has taken students from ASU’s design and health care programs on traveling studies to Africa for the past two years.

Beth Ann Swan, PhD, CRNP, FAAN

Beth Ann Swan is the Dean of the Jefferson School of Nursing at Thomas Jefferson University.  She has a distinguished record in research and training in evidence-based practice, ambulatory care nursing, and academic nursing practice. Swan co-authored a book, Evidence-based Nursing Care Guidelines: Medical-Surgical Interventions that received a 2008 American Journal of Nursing (AJN) Book of the Year Award. Swan is a Past President of the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing (AAACN) and was a member of the Steering Committee of the National Quality Forum (NQF) for Standardizing Ambulatory Care Performance Measures. 

She also served as an Honorary Visiting Expert, Health Manpower Development Plan (HMDP) for the Ministry of Health, Singapore. Swan has received over $2.8 million in extramural funding, including an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) grant to study delirium screening at the point of care in hospitalized older adults, and a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Bureau of Health Professions, Division of Nursing, to develop, implement, and evaluate advanced practice educational programs to promote health access in rural Pennsylvania via online graduate education.

Patricia Brennan, PhD, RN, FACMI

Patricia Flatley Brennan is the Lillian L. Moehlman Bascom Professor at the School of Nursing and College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Brennan holds a doctorate in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Science in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania. She is national program director of Project HealthDesign, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national program designed to stimulate the next generation of personal health records (PHRs). 

Following seven years of clinical practice in critical care nursing and psychiatric nursing, Brennan held several academic positions. She developed ComputerLink, an electronic network designed to reduce isolation and improve self-care among home health care patients and also directed HeartCare, an online tailored information and communication service that helped cardiac patients recover faster at home.

Nancy Dunton, PhD, FAAN

Nancy Dunton is the Principal Investigator on several research projects in the areas of health services and social services. She is also involved in the graduate student thesis and dissertation committees. A multi-talented individual, Dunton not only is an Associate Researcher for the School of Nursing, she is also an Associate Research Professor for the Department of Health Policy and Management in the KU School of Medicine. She has served as the Principal Investigator of the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI®) since it was established in 1988.  

The last 25 years, Dunton has spent researching topics in the health and social services. She has studied everything from KIDS COUNT in New York State to Barriers to Self Sufficiency Among Welfare Recipients.  She is a member of the Kansas City Metro Outlook Technical Advisory Panel, Mid American Regional Council. She is also actively involved in various professional organizations.

Vincent S. Staggs, PhD

Vincent S. Staggs is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Kansas Medical Center.  His area of research is focused on mixed models linear and generalized, bootstrapping, latent variable modeling, psychology and mental health, health services, especially patient safety, and nursing care. Staggs has published in peer-reviewed journals on the impact of nurse staffing mix on quality of care.

Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD, RN, CPNP/PMHNP, FNAP, FAAN

Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk is currently the Associate Vice President for Health Promotion, University Chief Wellness Officer, and Dean of the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University. She also is a Professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Ohio State’s College of Medicine.

She is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in evidence-based practice, intervention research and child and adolescent mental health.  Melnyk has consulted with hundreds of health care systems and colleges throughout the nation and globe on how to improve quality of care and patient outcomes through implementing and sustaining evidence-based practice. Her record includes over $19 million of sponsored funding from federal agencies as Principal Investigator and over 180 publications. Melnyk is co-editor of several books, including Evidence-based Practice in Nursing & Healthcare: A Guide to Best Practice.

Marla Weston, PhD, RN, FAAN

Marla Weston, CEO of the American Nurses Association (ANA), is a distinguished and visionary leader for nursing, who has dedicated her career to improving the work and public policy environment for nurses and the quality of care for patients. This focus has included leadership in a broad range of roles, including direct patient care in intensive care and medical-surgical units, nurse educator, clinical nurse specialist, director of patient care support, and nurse executive. 

To ensure a strong national voice for nursing, Weston has helped forge partnerships among nursing groups and fostered effective working relationships between the Nursing Alliance for Quality Care, the American Academy of Nursing’s Expert Panel on Quality, and other groups working on national initiatives central to nursing, including care coordination, performance measurement, and patient-centered care.

Cynthia Saver, MS, RN

Cynthia Saver has more than 20 years of publishing experience with an in-depth package of skills. Having held senior editorial positions, including Executive Vice President at Nursing Spectrum, a division of Gannett, Inc, which had a print circulation of nearly one million and an active website, Saver is experienced in print and digital publishing. She worked with 15 other experienced nurse editors on Anatomy of Writing of Publication for Nurses, which takes a fun, practical approach to writing. She has written for many nursing publications including the Journal of Nursing Regulation, Nursing Spectrum, Nursing Management, NurseWeek, American Nurse Today, AORN Journal, OR Manager, and the American Journal of Nursing, to name a few. Cynthia has been editorial director for a medical communications company, and book acquisitions editor for Sigma Theta Tau International.