Get to know David
Get to know David
My Advanced Practice Nursing (APRN) career began in 1995 when I became a one of the first Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) in Southern California. I have also been a family practice clinician (FNP) since 1998. My career as an APRN has been primarily dedicated to the provision of healthcare to home-bound older adults. I am certified as a Gerontological Specialist (GS-C). I am also a Certified Professional Gerontologist (CPG). As a medical provider, I worked for many years in in clinics and hospitals as a palliative care consultant with ties to the community. In my current clinical practice, I continue to work in the post-acute space according to a Residentialist Based Primary Care (RBPC) model providing medical care to older adults at home, or in clinics, skilled nursing homes, or assisted living communities. I've been a clinical preceptor and interprofessional mentor for many students over the years. Academically, I earned a PhD in Nursing from UW Milwaukee in 2011. In 2018, I joined Azusa Pacific University (APU) where I am currently a full-time faculty member in the Department of Nursing, and I am presently the director of the Adult Geriatric Nurse Practitioner (AGNP) program at APU.
In September 2019, I was awarded the US Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Geriatric Academic Career Award (GACA). The GACA is a 4 year post-doctoral grant, the purpose of which is to support the career development of junior faculty in Geriatrics at accredited schools of allopathic medicine, osteopathic medicine, nursing, social work, psychology, dentistry, pharmacy, or allied health as academic geriatric specialists and to provide clinical training in Geriatrics, including the training of interprofessional teams of health care professionals. Established in 1998, this award has provided vital support for the career development of more than 300 clinician-educators in geriatrics. This award had never been given to a Nursing candidate before 2019 - only Medicine. Two doctoral nurse practitioners received this award in 2019 and I am one of them. In 2023, I became a Distinguished Educator in Gerontological Nursing (DEGN) at the National Hartford Center for Gerontological Excellence (NHCGNE). In 2023, I received funding for the HRSA Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP) at APU. As the Project Director for the APU GWEP, I will be working with APU faculty, CareConnectMD and other community organizations to educate and train interprofessional healthcare and supportive care workforce teams to provide cutting-edge age-friendly and dementia-friendly healthcare for underrepresented and underserved older adults in our community.
In an Age-Friendly Health System, older adults get the best care possible without experiencing healthcare related harms and they are satisfied with the health care they receive. My primary goal is to increase access to age-friendly and demential friendly care for older adults. Along with Physicians, Nurse Practitioners with gerontological expertise make excellent RBPC providers for the homebound older-adult population. My aim is to develop education and training that supports the development RBPC providers who will be the future leaders of highly qualified interprofessional teams in a our emerging person-centered and value based healthcare system. I believe the RBPC interprofessional model of care delivery is the best way meet the needs or older adult population and it is consistent with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) triple aim framework that strives to simultaneously achieve the best outcomes, while at the same time improving patient experiences and reducing the per capita cost of care. These goals are particularly important for the underrepresented and underserved segments of the older adult population in Southern California, and across the nation.
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