Newark, New Brunswick, & Blackwood, NJ
Assistant Professor
Division of Nursing Science
RBHS - Newark
ACK 360
973-353-5060
Specialty: Nursing Leadership; Critical Care/Emergency Nursing - Topics of interest: Chronotype, Occupational fatigue, shift work, shift worker safety, work environment, organizational outcomes, nurse and patient safety
My experience includes hospital and corporate healthcare administration and a clinical career in emergency nursing spanning nearly two decades. Previously, I served as the Vice President of Clinical Quality for a large healthcare organization focused on creating nursing efficiency models to advance nursing practice. As a nurse scientist, my research focuses on understanding the effect of acute and chronic fatigue on healthcare providers and shift workers, as well as factors influencing differential organizational support for nursing practice within acute care hospitals affecting nurse and patient safety. My research has shown that nurses who are acutely and chronically fatigued during their work shifts, especially at night, miss high-priority nursing care, such as adequate surveillance and timely medication administration. Recently, my research has expanded to include all first responders working abnormal shifts. My body of research seeks to build awareness and interventions to mitigate the risk of occupational fatigue on negative nurse and patient outcomes. In addition, one of the primary aims of my work is to understand the effect of chronotype, which refers to individual preferences regarding sleep and waking times. Chronotype is a behavioral manifestation of underlying circadian rhythms and has been increasingly recognized as significantly contributing to shift work maladaptation, resulting in adverse health and safety outcomes.