Prevention Plus

About Us
About Barbara J. Braden, PhD, RN
		Dr. Braden is Dean of the University College at Creighton University and Summer Sessions at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. As such, she oversees all adult undergraduate and professional development programs for the university. She received her bachelor's degree from Creighton University in 1973, her master's from University of California at San Francisco in 1975 and her doctoral degree from The University of Texas at Austin in 1988. Dr. Braden was project director of the Creighton University Teaching Nursing Home Project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This collaborative service-education model served as an impetus for several
important on-going programs of gerontological research, including the collaborative work on risk factors in pressure sore development that she and Dr. Nancy Bergstrom began in 1983. Dr. Braden is best known for her work in the development of the *Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk* which has become widely used in the U.S. and is one of the tools recommended for use in the Clinical Practice Guidelines on Pressure Ulcers in Adults, put forth by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. She has been a co-investigator with Dr. Nancy Bergstrom on two NIH research grants, studying etiological factors in pressure ulcers and testing the Braden Scale. The results of these studies and others have been reported in top tier nursing and multi-disciplinary research journals. Dr. Braden was elected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and served as a member of the board of the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel . She has received many awards for her work, including lifetime achievement awards from the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel and the World Union of Wound Healing Societies. She has received Alumni Merit Awards from all three of the universities from which she received degrees and an award for leadership in Gerontological Nursing from the Midwest Alliance in Nursing. Click here to contact Barbara.

About Nancy Bergstrom, PhD, RN, FAAN
		Dr. Bergstrom is the Theodore J. and Mary E. Trumble Professor of Aging Research and Director of the Center on Aging at the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston. The Center on Aging is an interdisciplinary center housed in the School of Nursing. The mission of the Center encompasses research, professional education and development, and community service activities. Dr. Bergstrom received her Ph.D. in Clinical Nursing Research from the University of Michigan. Her research has focused on the etiology of pressure sores, as well as leading the research that established the reliability and validity of the Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk. More recently, Dr. Bergstrom has participated in state and National quality
improvement projects and served as a consultant in policy making endeavors. Dr. Bergstrom's early grants included a large multi-site study to determine the predictive validity of the Braden Scale and in other studies have tested the validity of the Braden Scale and selected subscales. Dr. Bergstrom served as President of the Midwest Nursing Research Society, Chair of the American Nurses Association's Council of Nurse Researchers, and a Trustee of the American Nurses Foundation. Dr. Bergstrom chaired two panels for The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research developing guidelines for the Prediction and Prevention of Pressure Sores (1992) and for the Treatment of Pressure Sores (1994). These guidelines serve as a model for those written in a number of countries. Dr. Bergstrom received the first Kosiak Award presented by the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel for excellence in research, education and practice. The most prestigious award, the Sigma Theta Tau Baxter Foundation Episteme Award, recognized her pressure ulcer and guideline development work as a major breakthrough in nursing knowledge development. Dr. Bergstrom has written more than 120 research papers, chapters in books, technical reports, editorials and the like. These works are published in The Journal of the American Geriatric Society, Journal of the American Medical Association, Research in Nursing and Health, Nursing Research, Advances in Wound Care, and many others. She remains interested in translating knowledge into evidence based practice protocols and intervention for pressure ulcer prevention. Her most recent research, a $2.5 million NIH, NINR and NIA funded, randomized controlled trial of pressure ulcer prevention strategies is in progress. Click here to contact Nancy.

About Jayne Ball
		Ms. Ball received her Bachelor of Science in Social Work from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1998. She spent the next few years as a social worker with the elderly population. Prior to and during the time of pursuing her degree, Ms. Ball also worked for Drs. Bergstrom & Braden on their NIH-funded pressure ulcer studies. Since 1998 she has been the office manager for Prevention Plus. As office manager, Ms. Ball is the contact person for Prevention Plus via this web site. She mails letters of permission to use the Braden Scale, facilitates the purchase of Prevention Plus products, and attends to inquiries. Click here to contact Jayne.