Donna Sullivan Havens, PhD, RN, FAAN has been appointed the 2016/2017 Frances Bloomberg International Visiting Professor. Over the course of this professorship, Dr. Havens will lead a program of study that will engage faculty, students and academic healthcare facilities in the area of Shaping Systems to Promote Desired Outcomes. Dr. Havens made her first visit in November 2016 and will visit us three more times throughout 2017, meeting with graduate students, faculty and researchers. She will present a public lecture during her spring 2017 visit.
The Interim Dean and a tenured professor in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Havens’ career trajectory includes a rich blend of roles in nursing practice, administration, academe and research.
Dr. Havens earned a BS in Nursing from Cedar Crest College, an MSN from Villanova University, and a PhD in Nursing from the University of Maryland focusing on health services research. She completed post-doctoral study on the organization of nursing and outcomes with Dr. Linda Aiken in the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Nursing. She has been a Visiting Professor at the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery at King’s College, London UK, working with colleagues in the National Nursing Research Unit.
For more than 25 years, she has studied, published, consulted, and presented nationally and internationally about the nursing practice environment, nurse executive leadership and turnover, professional nursing practice, staff nurse decisional involvement, relational coordination, magnet hospitals and more recently partnering with hospitals to implement research-based features of professional practice models. She describes her goal as “Designing systems to promote desired outcomes”. She developed the Decisional Involvement Scale, an instrument used extensively in the U.S. and internationally to identify levels of actual and desired staff nurse decisional involvement and to guide change
She has served as principal investigator (PI) on multiple funded research studies focused on improving nursing practice and patient care. Most recently on two five-year initiatives to translate what has been learned from research about the nursing practice environment and outcomes into evidence-based leadership and management to improve the quality of patient care and nursing practice in hospitals. The implementation science studies, “Building Capacity for Better Work and Better Care” (2004-2009) – six hospitals and “Spiraling Upward for Nurse Retention and Quality Care,” (2008-2013) – five hospitals, were funded by the HRSA- Bureau of Health Professions, Division of Nursing. She is currently the PI on a HRSA funded study to implement interprofessional collaborative practice in four rural NC Emergency Rooms. Havens also served as the PI of “Why and How do Hospitals Pursue Magnet Recognition?” (funded by RWJF) and a 2006 study of nurse executive turnover which was replicated in 2013, funded by the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) Foundation.
Dr. Havens has received multiple awards and honors including: fellowship in the American Academy of Nursing, the University of Maryland School of Nursing inaugural Visionary Pioneer Award, the University of Maryland School of Nursing’s Distinguished Alumni Award, the Pennsylvania Nightingale Award for Research Excellence, the Villanova University School of Nursing Distinguished Contributions in Nursing Research Medallion, the American College of Healthcare Executives Edgar C. Hayhow Article of the Year award and the American Organization of Nurse Executives Nurse Researcher Award. She belongs to multiple policy boards: including chairing the ANCC Commission on Magnet, and until recently, she chaired the American Academy of Nursing Expert Panel on “Building Health Care System Excellence”.
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Havens as the 2016-2017 Frances Bloomberg International Visiting Professor. Details about her future visits will be made available in the coming weeks.