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Ellen Brown, E.d.D., F.A.A.N., an associate professor of graduate nursing at Florida International University’s (FIU) Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing & Health Sciences, has been named as the Wallace Gilroy Endowed Faculty Scholar. The two-year appointment, made possible through the Wallace Gilroy Endowed Nursing Research Fund established by the Hugoton Foundation and Joan K. Stout, R.N, will promote her research specializing on caregiving in the aging population.
The appointment will further Dr. Brown’s current collaboration with Miami Jewish Health to evaluate the impact of empathy in health care delivery for older adults, many living with dementia. For the past two years, Dr. Brown has been working with Marc E. Agronin, M.D., Senior Vice President, Behavioral Health and Chief Medical Officer for Miami Jewish Health’s MIND Institute, to pilot Miami Jewish EmpathiCare SM.
Dr. Brown was also instrumental in developing the CareHeroes web and smartphone app. The app is designed to improve dementia care coordination between practitioner and family caregiver two-fold: (1) through a secure platform for sharing clinical information in real time with greater accuracy, and (2) access to multi-media educational content on Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) and caregiving including with the CareHeroes chatbot. The CareHeroes app also serves as a stand-alone intervention to reduce the negative impact of caregiving on the family caregiver by linking them to services and resources that caregivers often are unaware exist, and addresses mental health needs of caregivers through self-screens for depression and burden that provide instant feedback and recommendations.
