Geriatric Nursing Protocols for Best Practice

Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, is the president of The John A. Hartford Foundation in New York City (NYC), a foundation dedicated to improving the care of older adults. Established in 1929, the Foundation has a current endowment of more than half a billion dollars. She serves as the chief strategist for the Foundation and was recently recognized for her leadership as one of the top 50 Influencers in Aging by PBS's Next Avenue, the premier digital publication dedicated to covering issues for older Americans. Dr. Fulmer is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. She previously served as distinguished professor and dean of Bouve College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University. Before that, she served as the Erline Perkins McGriff Professor and dean of New York University (NYU) College of Nursing. She received her bachelor's degree from Skidmore College, her master's and doctoral degrees from Boston College, and her geriatric nurse practitioner post-master's certificate from NYU. She completed a Brookdale National Fellowship and was the first nurse to serve on the board of the American Geriatrics Society. She was the first nurse to serve as president of the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Fulmer is nationally and internationally recognized as a leading expert in geriatrics and is best known for conceptualization and development of the national Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) program and research on the topic of elder abuse and neglect, work that has been funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Nursing Research. She is a trustee for the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, Springer Publishing Company, and the Bassett Healthcare System and is cochair of the National Academy of Medicine's Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence. She previously served as the chair of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellows Program and held board positions at Skidmore College, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Geriatrics and Gerontology Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Advisory Board for Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Nursing. She is the recipient of prestigious awards, including the 2017 American Society on Aging Rosalie S. Wolf Award for her body of work on elder abuse. In 2016, she received the Award for Exceptional Service to The New York Academy of Medicine for her distinguished service on the Academy's Board of Trustees, including as vice-chair and for her active engagement in the policy work of the Academy, especially its age-friendly NYC initiative. She has been honored with invitations for named lectureships from noted universities. DeAnne Zwicker, DrNP, AGNP-BC, is an American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)-certified adult nurse practitioner and geriatric nurse practitioner. She is currently working as an independent geriatric consultant. She completed her doctor of nursing practice degree in 2010 with a primary focus as a clinical scientist and secondary focus in nursing education at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Her dissertation was a mixed-method study titled "Preparedness, Appraisal of Behaviors, and Role Strain in Dementia Family Caregivers and the Caregiver Perspective of Preparedness." She has been a coeditor and chapter author for many versions of the Evidence-Based Geriatric Nursing Protocols for Best Practice book, as well as a content editor for ConsultGeriRN.org since its inception. She has been a registered nurse for 32 years with clinical practice experience as a geriatric nurse practitioner since 1992 in primary care; subacute, long-term care; and, recently, palliative care, and a clinical expert consultant in many domains in geriatrics. She has also taught nursing at the graduate level at New York University, Drexel University, and George Mason University. Her areas of interest in geriatrics include proactive intervention in older adults to prevent adverse drug events, pain control to aid in maintaining function and quality of life, and preventing hospital iatrogenesis, particularly in persons with dementia.