Ann C. Hurley, RN, DNSc, FAAN, FGSA conducts patient safety research as a member of Dr. Patricia Dykes’ teams to “first, ‘do no harm.
Three programs of research characterize Dr. Hurley’s career: diabetes self-care management, caring for persons with advanced dementia, and promoting patient safety. She has led and been a team member of several projects that developed valid and reliable scales needed to answer crucial questions. She has developed two and modified one scale to learn the impact of self-efficacy on self-care management of diabetes. As part of a team led by Dr. Ladislav Volicer to conduct clinical and ethical research to improve the care of persons with advanced dementia, she developed several scales that have been translated into multiple languages, of which 9 in English are reproduced in a 2015 measurement text. Working with Dr. Dykes she has continued the recovery from medical errors work, developed scales to facilitate nursing informatics research, evaluated patient/family and system impacts of bringing health care technology to the bedside of hospitalized patients, and conducted research on falls prevention.