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Dana Bjarnason, R.N., M.A., C.N.A., Ph.D.

Graduated: 2000

Advisor: Anne Hudson Jones, Ph.D.

Master's Thesis Title:

End-of-Life Care: Understanding and Enhancing the Nurse-Patient Dialogue

Current Position and Address:

Chief Nurse Officer
Ben Taub General Hospital
1504 Taub Loop
Houston, TX 77030
phone: 713-873-2000
email: danabjarnason@hotmail.com

Dana received a doctorate in nursing from the Graduate School for Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) in August 2007. The title of her dissertation was Belief Systems and Patient Care: An Examination of the Relationship between Nurse Religiosity and End-of-Life Care.

She accepted a position as the chief nurse officer at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston, Texas, starting in September 2007.

She was reappointed to a second four-year term on the American Nurses Association Advisory Board for Ethics and Human Rights.

SELECTED HONORS/ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

2004 - Salute To Nursing Scholarship
2003 - Elected as a Texas Nurses Association delegate to the American Nurses Association House of Delegates in Washington, D.C.

2002 - 2006 - Appointed to Board of Directors, American Nurses Association, Center for Ethics and Human Rights Advisory Board

2002 - 2003 - Appointed to Texas Nurses Association Council on Practice Issues

2002 - Elected to Sigma Theta Tau - Alpha Delta Chapter, treasurer

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS:

"Health Care Forum Back to the Basics: The Elements of Success"

"Enhancing Bed Turnaround by Improving Bed Utilization" (poster presentation)

"An Express Access Unit: An Innovative Approach to Unprecedented Occupancy and Patient Placement Delays" (poster presentation), Miami Beach, FL, August 2002

Nursing Ethics Seminar, "Operationalizing Confidentiality: Revisited" (co-presenter), UTMB, Galveston, TX, August 2002

UTMB Medical Surgical Nursing - "Back to the Future: Facing Challenging Situations" (presenter, Galveston, TX, July 2002

University Hospital Consortium, "Managing Patient Flow" (poster presentation)

"An Express Access Unit - The Answer to Unprecedented Occupancy and Patient Placement Delays" (poster presentation), Miami, FL, March 2002

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

"Concept Analysis of Religiosity" Home Health Care Management and Practice, 19, no. 5 (August 2007): 350-55.

MASTER'S THESIS COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Anne Hudson Jones, Ph.D. (Chair)
Michele A. Carter, Ph.D.
Phyllis Kritek, R.N., Ph.D., FAAN