RESEARCH

My research program focuses on improving health outcomes of vulnerable populations using innovative health systems and informatics approaches. Two prominent themes of my work are: enhancing the quality of care for hospitalized older adults and improving self-management of chronic health conditions among Hispanic, African-American, and LGBTQ+ populations. My research is distinguished by interdisciplinary team science, which bridges nursing, medicine, psychology, computer science, and engineering across the University of Florida (UF), health systems, communities, and other academic institutions.

TEACHING

I am committed to advancing the nursing profession and the health of the nation by educating future nurses to be knowledge workers who can provide effective high-quality care, lead efforts to improve health care delivery, and conduct cutting-edge research. I have consistently pursued excellence in my teaching responsibilities to support evidence-based, high-impact teaching that enhances student learning across Bachelor of Science (BSN), Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programs. I have a record of accomplishment of mentoring BSN, DNP, and PhD students, and post-doctoral research fellows.

I am also Principal Investigator and Mentoring Core Lead of the NIH T32 National Research Service Award, Translational Science Training to Reduce the Impact of Alcohol on HIV Infection. We are an interdisciplinary training team that consists of faculty from the colleges of Nursing, Public Health and Health Professions, and Health and Human Performance. If you are interested in applying for a pre-doctoral or post-doctoral training opportunity, please follow the link below.

SERVICE

I am a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the New York Academy of Medicine. I am also a member of the American Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau International, AcademyHealth, AMIA, and the National Association of Hispanic Nurses. In 2018, I was selected as the recipient of the UF Health Sciences Center Superior Accomplishment Award in Community Service for my significant and meaningful community-based research and mentorship of pre- and post-doctoral trainees.

My research is leading the way to inform infrastructure development for data-driven knowledge generation that serves as a model for organizations across the United States to improve the quality of care for hospitalized older adults. I am leveraging electronic patient, clinical, and administrative data and data science methods to identify valid, modifiable factors that predict hospital-acquired falls (HAF), which affect annually approximately one million US hospitalized patients. My lab also explores the use of registered nurses’ progress notes, or text data on patient observations, to predict HAF.

The other cornerstone of my research program is developing health information technology (HIT) to promote chronic disease self-management. I pioneered and published in Applied Clinical Informatics a HIT design approach, known as Consumer-centered Participatory Design (C2PD). Unlike other design approaches, C2PD provides public health and community-based organizations, academic researchers, and commercial designers with a theoretically informed approach that engages consumers throughout the development and evaluation of HIT. C2PD builds on the strengths and resources within a community, promotes a collaborative learning and empowering process, facilitates collaborative partnerships, and incorporates four components of HIT design, namely; user preferences, functions, tasks, and representational requirements, to develop highly usable systems. We have applied this approach to develop HIT for Commuity-dwelling older adults, Family Caregivers of people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia’s, and Parental Caregivers of children who are obese and have asthma. We are expanding this work with People living with HIV.

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