Research Priorities & Advisory Council

Nursing Professional Development – Research Specialist
Education, Professional Development & Research Department
Sarasota Memorial Health Care System

Jen Bonamer works as a Nursing Professional Development – Research Specialist at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Florida. She leads the nursing research and evidence-based practice programs and is actively focused on supporting healthy work environments and clinician well-being. Jen received her BSN from the University of Florida (Gainesville) and practiced for ten years in pediatrics (general practice and hematology/oncology/bone marrow transplant). She completed the University of South Florida’s (Tampa) Nursing BS to PhD program with her master’s of science degree (nursing education) and PhD (nursing). She is certified in both nursing professional development and advanced holistic nursing. Jen is an active member in the American Nurses Association – Enterprise (ANAE) Research Advisory Council and an independent contractor of peer review services for the Magnet program.

Associate Nurse Executive, Nursing Excellence
Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Cathy Ivory, PhD, RN-BC, NEA-BC, FAAN, Associate Nurse Executive, oversees the Office of Nursing Excellence for the Vanderbilt Health System. Through collaboration across all VUMC and Vanderbilt University entities, The Office of Nursing Excellence is responsible for professional, evidence-based nursing practice, VUMC’s shared governance and Magnet activities, and all aspects of inquiry that translates evidence into practice and improves quality, safety, patient experience, and the delivery of cost effective care across settings. Dr. Ivory facilitates nursing research activities and connects nurse investigators with collaborators across the broader research enterprise at Vanderbilt.

Dr. Ivory has more than 25 years of experience as a staff nurse, clinical specialist, system-level nursing administrator, educator, and health services researcher. Dr. Ivory’s clinical focus is perinatal nursing and she served as the 2014 President of the Association of Women’s Health, OB and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN), representing more than 300,000 nurses who care for women and newborns. She also holds two ANCC board certifications, one as an informatics nurse (RN-BC) and one as an advanced nurse executive (NEA-BC). She was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2017.

Dr. Ivory holds a BSN, an MSN in nursing administration/healthcare informatics, and a PhD in nursing science. Her research interests include implementation science and using data generated by nurses to quantify their role in patient care, patient safety, and patient outcomes. She is passionate about the nursing profession, nursing informatics, evidence-based nursing practice, and research.

Professor Emerita of Nursing
Marquette University College of Nursing

Dr. Weiss is Professor Emerita of Nursing at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and Master of Science in Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Science degrees from the University of San Diego. Prior to joining the faculty of Marquette University, she held positions as clinical nurse specialist and nurse researcher in women’s services for a large healthcare system.

Dr. Weiss continues to be an active nurse researcher and research consultant. Her program of research focuses on the contribution acute care nurses make to patient outcomes. Much of her work has focused on discharge preparation, assessment of discharge readiness, and post-discharge outcomes across the range of patients discharged from acute care hospitals. Her funded research studied the impact of nurse staffing on quality and cost measures of the discharge transition from hospital to home. Dr. Weiss was the Principal Investigator for the READI multi-site study, commissioned by ANCC and conducted at 33 Magnet hospitals, that investigated implementation of discharge readiness assessment as a standard nursing practice for hospital discharge. Other related research focuses on nurse staffing, continuity of care, and nurse characteristics such as education and certification that contribute to nurse performance in achieving patient outcomes. Her goal is to document the critical role and value hospital nurses bring to patient care and outcomes during and after hospitalization.

Instrument development has been an important aspect of her work on discharge readiness. Dr. Weiss has developed and tested research scales to measure quality of discharge teaching, discharge readiness, and post-discharge coping difficulty. She has conducted tool validation studies in adult-medical surgical patients, parents of hospitalized children, and postpartum mothers. These scales have been translated into more than 15 languages and are being used extensively in clinical practice and research. Dr. Weiss collaborates frequently with researchers worldwide on the science of discharge preparation. She has published extensively with US and international colleagues.

Continuing her emphasis on the value nurses bring to patient care, Dr. Weiss is currently working with research teams to explore the value of nurses as human capital assets to healthcare organizations, with ongoing studies on nurse certification and continuity of care, and organizational investment in nursing human capital development.

Professor
The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
The Johns Hopkins Business of Health Institute
Economics Editor,
International Journal of Nursing Studies

Dr. Yakusheva is an economist with research interests in health economics and health services research. Yakusheva's area of expertise is econometric methods for causal inference, data architecture, and secondary analyses of big data. The primary focus of Yakusheva’s research is the study of the economic value of nursing/nurses. Yakusheva pioneered the development of a new method for outcomes-based clinician value-added measurement using the electronic medical records. With this work, Yakusheva was able to measure, for the first time, the value-added contributions of individual nurses to patient outcomes. This work has won her national recognition earning her the Best of AcademyHealth Research Meeting Award in 2014 and a Nomination in 2018. Yakusheva is currently a PI on two AHRQ funded R01s aiming to optimize the hospital nursing workforce and ANA Enterprise funded research to conceptualize a new model and definition of the economic value of nursing.

Yakusheva is a team scientist who has contributed methodological expertise to many interdisciplinary projects including hospital readmissions, primary care providers, obesity, pregnancy and birth, and peer effects on health behaviors and outcomes. In 2023, Yakusheva was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Academy of Nursing.

Yakusheva holds a PhD in economics, an MS in economic policy, and a BS in mathematics.

Executive Director, Office of Quality, Safety, Practice, Innovation, & Director, Munn Center for Nursing Research
Connell-Jones Endowed Chair in Nursing
Patient Care Services, Massachusetts General Hospital
 
Dr. Snydeman's expertise and leadership are centered on delivering safe, evidence-based, high-quality patient care through the continuous improvement of practices and positive outcomes, with a strong commitment to the safety and well-being of the workforce. As the Executive Director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Patient Care Services Office of Quality, Safety, Informatics, & Practice, she provides oversight for quality and safety programs, improvement initiatives, and outcomes related to nursing care, including falls, pressure injuries, central line bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and assaults on nursing personnel. Dr. Snydeman oversees a team of nine quality and informatics specialists and maintains a formal, non-direct reporting relationship with 75 unit-based clinical nurse specialists and nurse practice specialists.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Snydeman led and supported the full implementation of Circle Up Huddles in all Patient Care Services (PCS) inpatient areas, the hospital-wide Proning Teams initiative (recognized by Johnson & Johnson as a top ten innovation), pressure injury research, qualitative research on the experiences of bedside nurses and respiratory therapists, and the implementation of resilience and well-being strategies. In collaboration with RGI Analytics, she helped develop an algorithm using live-streaming electronic health record data to alert nurses on their iPhones about changes in patients' fall risks and the necessary interventions to prevent falls. Preliminary statistical findings from this initiative are promising.

With over forty years of progressive nursing leadership experience, Dr. Snydeman’s background in nursing leadership and critical care nursing led to her dissertation work, which employed a quasi-experimental pre/post-test design with intervention and control groups to measure the impact of a theory-based adverse event nurse peer review program on safety culture and medical error recovery in critical care settings. A linear mixed model analysis suggested that critical care nurses who participated in the program developed a more critical view of safety culture and work environment, along with an increased sense of accountability and responsibility in using strategies to keep patients safe. Further interdisciplinary safety research is ongoing under her leadership.

Director of Precision Cardiomyopathy Clinical Services
Advanced Heart Failure Nurse Practitioner
Duke University Hospital

As a doctor of nursing practice with a specialty in heart failure, transplant and mechanical support, my research is focused on improving patient outcomes through the development and implementation of best practices for the care of advanced heart failure patients. My clinical activities are centered on reducing healthcare inequities and improving Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) throughout the disease trajectory by optimizing interdisciplinary management and transitional care. Additionally, I have worked on database creation for both clinical and academic purposes as well as leveraging information technology to promote clinical practice standardization, minimize medical errors, and reduce cost of care.

As a healthcare leader and board-certified nurse executive , Dr. Fajardo specializes in establishing centers of excellence by building organizational, clinical, and educational infrastructures to deliver integrative, efficient, and cost-effective care. Her expertise includes designing and implementing quality improvement initiatives, measuring their impact, and making data-driven adjustments aligned with strategic institutional objectives. Dr. Fajardo has served as Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, task leader, and technical consultant on projects funded by government, industry, and internal sources. In addition, she has successfully collaborated in conducting randomized clinical trials (e.g., patient screening, enrollment, and monitoring), produced peer-reviewed publications, served as editor-in-chief of nursing textbooks, and participated as a keynote speaker at national and international symposiums.

Professional Development Specialist, Denver Health
Adjunct Professor, University of Colorado, College of Nursing
Adjunct Faculty, Colorado Christian University

Kathy Casey, PhD, RN, NPD-BC, is nationally and internationally known for her Casey-Fink Survey design work supporting graduate nurse role transition, nurse retention, and readiness for professional practice.

Kathy is certified in Nursing Professional Development, and currently serves as a Professional Development Specialist at Denver Health, in Denver, Colorado. She is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado College of Nursing and Adjunct Faculty teaching EBP and Research at Colorado Christian University.

In March 2023, Kathy received the Association for Nursing Professional Development's Marlene Kramer Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions and research on survey development for use in education and practice programs. In October 2023, Kathy was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.

Kathy received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Pacific Lutheran University, her Master's Degree in Nursing Administration from the University of Colorado, College of Nursing, and her Doctorate in Nursing Education from the University of Northern Colorado, School of Nursing.

Associate Health Policy Researcher at RAND

Dr. Kortney Floyd James is a PhD prepared nurse and Associate Health Policy Researcher at RAND Corporation. Her research focuses on improving access to quality reproductive health services to minoritized populations. Dr. Floyd James is also the Associate Editor of the Nursing for Women's Health Journal, a role in which she is committed to recruiting and supporting manuscripts and research that reflect diverse perspectives and identities. Dr. Floyd James recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the National Clinician Scholars Program, a continuation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. During her postdoctoral fellowship Dr. Floyd James has published several manuscripts in high impact journals. Select publications include "NIH funding: Hone efforts to tackle structural racism" featured in Nature and "Factors associated with postpartum maternal functioning in Black women," featured in Journal of Clinical Medicine. Dr. Floyd James also received $200,000 from the American Nurses Foundation to implement an educational intervention to support ambulatory care nurses and other healthcare staff to care for Black pregnant and postpartum people’s mental health needs with culturally relevant resources.

Dr. Floyd James has a wide range of clinical experience in acute inpatient care, primary care, and public health. Dr. James is a pediatric nurse practitioner with over a decade of experience in acute newborn care and pediatric primary care. She has extensive experience in perinatal care due to her time as a registered nurse in the highest volume birthing hospital in the country with an average of around 25,000 births a year (and counting). Dr. Floyd James has also held an executive leadership position in the Office of Nursing, Maternal Child Health, and Infectious Disease divisions at the Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta, GA.

Ultimately, Dr. Floyd James' mission is to co-create solutions with Black women and people capable of pregnancy to achieve health equity.