Dissemination of Evidence-Based Recommendations for Sickle Cell Disease to Primary Care and Emergency Department Providers in North Carolina: A Cost Benefit Analysis.

Dr. Tanabe is the Laurel B. Chadwick Distinguished Professor in the Schools of Nursing and Medicine at Duke at the Duke University School of Nursing. Dr. Tanabe is a clinical and health services researcher. Her program of research focuses on improving systems of healthcare and patient outcomes for persons with sickle cell disease, a primarily minority and under-served population. Dr. Tanabe has received funding from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, the National Institute of Heart, Lung, and Blood, National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities and the National Institute of Nursing Research. Her work is advancing the care of individuals with sickle cell disease with a strong focus on improving pain management in the emergency department during a vaso-occlusive crisis. Her methodological expertise includes conducting multi-site clinical RCT’s, survey methods, qualitative research, quality improvement and implementation science. Dr. Tanabe has a strong passion for her work, individuals with sickle cell disease, and for mentoring students and faculty to conduct important, meaningful work to improve the health and well being of individuals and families.

Audrey L. Blewer, PhD, MPH is an epidemiologist and resuscitation scientist in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and Department of Population Health Sciences within Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Blewer completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania from the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics and her Master of Public Health in Social in Behavioral Sciences from the University of Florida.

Dr. Blewer has published in several noteworthy journals such as Circulation, Lancet Public Health, Circulation Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, and Critical Care Medicine. She is recognized in the field of resuscitation science nationally and internationally. Dr. Blewer is contributing to the upcoming American Heart Association Guidelines writing group for Resuscitation Education and serves on the Editorial Board for the journal Resuscitation Plus. Dr. Blewer works on interdisciplinary research projects at both Duke and Duke-NUS Medical Center

Dr. Bosworth is a health services researcher and Deputy Director of the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT)  at the Durham VA Medical Center. He is also Vice Chair of Education and Professor of Population Health Sciences. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nursing at Duke University Medical Center and Adjunct Professor in Health Policy and Administration at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests comprise three overarching areas of research: 1) clinical research that provides knowledge for improving patients’ treatment adherence and self-management in chronic care; 2) translation research to improve access to quality of care; and 3) eliminate health care disparities. 

Dr. Bosworth is the recipient of an American Heart Association established investigator award, the 2013 VA Undersecretary Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research (The annual award is the highest honor for VA health services researchers), and a VA Senior Career Scientist Award. In terms of self-management, Dr. Bosworth has expertise developing interventions to improve health behaviors related to hypertension, coronary artery disease, and depression, and has been developing and implementing tailored patient interventions to reduce the burden of other chronic diseases. These trials focus on motivating individuals to initiate health behaviors and sustaining them long term and use members of the healthcare team, particularly pharmacists and nurses. He has been the Principal Investigator of over 30 trials resulting in over 400 peer reviewed publications and four books. This work has been or is being implemented in multiple arenas including Medicaid of North Carolina, private payers, The United Kingdom National Health System Direct, Kaiser Health care system, and the Veterans Affairs.

Areas of Expertise: Health Behavior, Health Services Research, Implementation Science, Health Measurement, and Health Policy

Dr. Crego is a registered nurse whose clinical experiences include psychiatric, adult trauma, adult critical care, pediatric intensive care, pediatric critical care transport, and pediatric cardiac intensive care nursing. Dr. Crego earned her BSN and her MSN in Nursing Administration at Barry University (Miami, FL), and she earned her PhD in Nursing at the University of Virginia. She came to the Duke University School of Nursing from the School of Nursing and Health Studies at Georgetown University, where she coordinated undergraduate courses and lectured on topics such as leadership, quality and transition to professional practice as well as care of infants and children. 

Her program of research concerns health disparities and understanding factors within the health care system that effect the quality and safety of care in acute and chronically ill people. She has expertise in the use of secondary data and has worked with and analyzed a number of these, including utilization, cost, clinical, registry and repository data. She has also disseminated knowledge about strategies in understanding and using secondary data methods to study clinical and administrative questions in nursing. Most recently her research focus is on Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) pain and understanding health system factors that perpetuate health inequities in people with Sickle Cell Disease.