PHILADELPHIA — Kate FitzPatrick, DNP, RN, ACNP-BC, NEA-BC, clinical director for the Women’s Health/Neonatal Nursing & Neuroscience Nursing divisions and interim director for the department of Advanced Practice at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), has been selected as a 2014-2017 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Executive Nurse Fellow (ENF).
Founded in 1998, the three-year RWJF ENF leadership development program provides coaching, education, and other support to advance the effectiveness of nurse leaders at improving health care delivery at local, state, and national levels.
All participants currently serve in senior leadership positions in health services, scientific and academic organizations, public health and community-based organizations or systems, and professional, governmental and policy organizations. They continue in these positions during their fellowships, and each develops, plans, and implements a new initiative to improve health care delivery in her or his community.
FitzPatrick is one of 20 nurse leaders selected from among more than 100 applicants nationwide for the prestigious opportunity, and the only one in the state of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia region to be chosen.
FitzPatrick’s leadership portfolio spans hospital administration, quality and patient safety, interprofessional clinical leadership, and trauma care. She has advanced professional nurse peer processes and outcomes by introducing innovative approaches and testing these approaches in her research.
Prior to joining HUP, FitzPatrick was state trauma system coordinator for the Delaware Public Health Division, where she led the statewide trauma system and the passage of trauma system legislation. FitzPatrick is also past president and former board member of the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN), has served on the Journal of Trauma Nursing’s editorial board, and represented the Pennsylvania Nurses Association on the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation board.
In 2007, FitzPatrick became the first nurse appointed to the Board of Trustees for the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma Foundation. She currently serves on the Board of the American Trauma Society and will be inducted as a Fellow into the American Academy of Nursing this fall.
“Penn Medicine has a strong tradition of nursing excellence,” said Regina Cunningham, RN, PhD, chief nursing executive at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “Kate’s selection is emblematic of the clinical skills and leadership demonstrated by nursing leaders throughout our institution. We congratulate Kate on this honor and salute RWJ Foundation for providing important nursing leadership programs designed to meet the needs of patients, now and in the future.”
A graduate of the University of Delaware and Widener University, FitzPatrick also earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice from Vanderbilt University. FitzPatrick completed a post-master's acute care nurse practitioner certificate from the University of Pennsylvania and the healthcare executive program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
FitzPatrick serves as clinical associate faculty at Penn’s School of Nursing and adjunct faculty at Vanderbilt University's Doctor of Nursing Practice program.
Click here for more information about the RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows program and full list of Fellows.
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