Transitions of care interventions to improve quality of life among patients hospitalized with acute conditions: a systematic literature review.

Dr. Oyesanya is an Associate Professor at Duke University School of Nursing. Her research program centers on care of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in acute and post-acute treatment settings, as well as support of their family caregivers. Her current research focuses on transitional care needs of patients with TBI, with an emphasis on improving patient and family quality of life post-discharge and self- and family-management of care.

Dr. Oyesanya earned her BSN, MSN, and PhD in Nursing from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Brain Injury Research at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, GA. Her research has been supported by federally- and internally funded awards. Dr. Oyesanya is actively involved in several professional organizations, including serving as Chair of the Mentoring Task Force and Chair-Elect of the Career Development Networking Group of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and as a member of the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses and the International Brain Injury Association.

Lesley Rink is a PhD student at Duke University School of Nursing.  Her research interests are in contemplative sciences with a focus on mindfulness-based practices.  As a nurse in the Surgery Trauma ICU at UNC Health Care for more than three years, she has conducted research projects for both health care providers and patients with an aim to assess changes in stress levels with brief mindfulness-based interventions. 

She has presented her research findings at national and local nursing conferences.  Lesley has frequently presented across the UNC Health Care System sharing information on stress reduction and resilience tools for health care providers.  Her passion for mindfulness-based interventions to reduce stress has inspired her research and pursuit of a PhD in Nursing.  She has a personal daily mindfulness meditation practice, has attended multiple silent meditation retreats, and has completed mindfulness-based stress reduction and integrative health coaching courses at Duke Integrative Medicine.  Lesley plans to continue integrating her mindfulness education and experience here at the Duke School of Nursing.  Lesley graduated with honors from the Duke University School of Nursing Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program in 2015 and was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau Honors Society. 

Before her nursing career, Lesley received her Bachelor of Science in Criminology and spent eight years working in public policy, budgetary development, and legislative advocacy work at the North Carolina General Assembly and the University of North Carolina System Office.   

Dr. Bettger’s research is dedicated to establishing real world evidence aimed to improve health care quality and policies that reduce the burden of disease and disability. As a health services researcher and implementation scientist, her research extends from observational studies to randomized and pragmatic trials. She was the Founding Director of Duke Roybal Center for Translational Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences of Aging and the Founding Director of Undergraduate Initiatives for the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy. She has examined implementation of several integrated care models to improve the transition home from the hospital (VERITAS with virtual exercise therapy after knee replacement, COMPASS for stroke, RECOVER for stroke in rural China, and coordinated care for trauma patients in Tanzania). She also studies implementation of community-based models of care that can prevent functional decline. These include the CTSA-funded IMPAC RCT of integrating physical therapists into primary care as first line providers to address musculoskeletal pain, the VA-funded Gerofit program of structured and progressive in-person and virtual group exercise for older Veterans, MRC-funded SINEMA RCT of a village-based model supporting stroke recovery in China, and a NIDCD study comparing three primary care protocols for older adult hearing healthcare.

In addition to the evidence translation studies in China (RECOVER and SINEMA) and Tanzania, she has partnered with experts in Singapore on stroke systems research, and worked on large cluster randomized trials to improve evidence-based care in Brazil, Peru, Argentina (BRIDGE-Stroke) and China (CNSR and Golden Bridge). To address health locally, she was the faculty sponsor to launch Exercise is Medicine at Duke and Help Desk, a student volunteer community resource navigator model addressing social determinants of health.

Dr. Bettger received her BA from the University of Western Ontario, Canada and her MS from the University of Wisconsin–LaCrosse where she studied community reintegration for stroke and brain-injured patients transitioning from hospital to home. Her doctoral training in Rehabilitation Sciences, completed at Boston University, concluded with an investigation of patterns of functional recovery and factors affecting outcomes in patients transitioning home following acute rehabilitation. While working on her doctorate, she also worked in state government as the director of the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry. Dr. Bettger completed post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania with a NIH NRSA research fellowship in neurorehabilitation, a research fellowship at the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health, and a Switzer Fellowship funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to study the role of the environment on functional outcomes. She completed additional research training at Duke as a mentored scholar in comparative effectiveness research funded by AHRQ. As of July 2022, she is an Adjunct Associate Professor for Duke's Department of Orthopaedics and has transitioned out of her role as Co-Director of the Duke Clinical and Translational Institute (CTSA) Pilots Accelerator Core working with NCCU. She is affiliate faculty with Duke's Science and Society, Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) and Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI), is a Senior Fellow of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, and is a Fellow of the American Heart Association.