Highlighting Advanced Practice Providers at National Jewish Health
APPs at National Jewish Health include physician assistants, nurse practitioners, certified registered nurse anesthetists, clinical nurse specialists and certified anesthesiologist assistants.
We recognize and celebrate providers who are certified and licensed to assess, diagnose, treat, and manage illnesses, prescribe medications, perform clinical procedures, and conduct clinical research in management of the whole individual. This important group of providers elevate the fields of medicine and nursing to ensure our patients and communities receive safe, high-quality, evidence-based care.
Featured Teams
Exercise and Performance Breathing Center
Mycobacterial and Respiratory Infections
Certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) practice in the Minimally Invasive Diagnostic Center (MIDC) providing high quality anesthesia care for patients undergoing procedures. Our CRNAs collaborate with proceduralists, nurses and techs to provide pre, intra and post anesthesia care for patients in the MIDC. We provide sedation and general anesthetics to assist the proceduralists (pulmonologists, gastroenterologists, and cardiologists) in gathering more objective data to assist in diagnostic criteria and assessing baseline/progressing disease processes for patients.
Our team of anesthetists are responsible for performing comprehensive assessments of patients' physical and anesthetic histories days prior to their procedure. As an outpatient center, we have clinical guidelines patients must meet to ensure optimal patient safety and outcomes. Notes written byour clinical colleagues and other tests such as echocardiograms are imperative to our pre-anesthetic assessment to certify that the patient is an appropriate fit for the MIDC.
A unique part of the CRNA job is meeting our patients for the first time in the preoperative interview. This is the brief opportunity we have to build a connection and reassure them that they are in some of the best hands in the country. We skillfully guide patients through their preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative care until we give our handoff to the recovery area nurses. It is such a delicate continuum of care and one that we proudly excel at here at National Jewish Health.
Our CRNA team recently made significant contributions to patient safety by creating and implementing a prescreening tool with criteria to identify patients at higher risk for anesthesia complications. This tool has improved patient safety by ensuring that patients are appropriate for anesthesia at an ambulatory center.
This team includes:
Jeffery Zimmerman, MS, APRN, CRNA, lead APP (pictured)
Annabelle Flanagan, CRNA
Gabrielle Heckman, CRNA
Stephanie May, CRNA
Janna Mendoza, MS, APRN, CRNA
Vinh Nguyen, MS, APRN, CRNA
Alison Seders, MS, APRN, CRNA
Jessica VanderKwaak, MS, APRN, CRNA
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| Lizzie Fan, MS, PA-C, and Cori Fratelli, MSN, FNP-C, are part of the dynamic interdisciplinary team who work collaboratively to evaluate and manage patients throughout a week-long program. | |
Exercise and Performance Breathing Center
The National Jewish Health Exercise and Performance Breathing Center empowers children and adults of any athletic or activity level to exercise to their fullest capacity and overcome associated medical and psychosocial barriers now and in the future through visionary, curious, collaborative, and elite clinical care, discovery, and education.
Mycobacterial and Respiratory Infections
The Division of Mycobacterial and Respiratory Infections is a collaborative team of providers including physicians, nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, dieticians and nurses that services primarily out-of-state patients who have pulmonary and extra pulmonary (soft tissue) mycobacterial infections and underlying bronchiectasis.
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| Jennifer Faber-Gerling, MS, ACNS-BC, ANP-BC (left) and Maria Rahardja, DNP, APRN, ANP | |
Located on the second floor of the Goodman building, this program offers an Adult Day Unit program (ADU) for new, out-of-state patients, which is a 10-day ambulatory evaluation of their underlying bronchiectasis and determine what predisposes them to this lung disease
The nurse practitioners (NPs) review all the intakes for prospective patients to determine what will be needed during their evaluations. They reach out to referring providers when needed and collaborate with consultants that may be needed to service these patients upon arrival. The NPs also provide valuable education to help patients have ownership of their disease process and be able to advocate for their health needs.
The Palliative Care team is comprised of nurse practitioners (NPs) and a licensed social worker who provide palliative and supportive care to patients with lung and other cancers, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, neuromuscular disorders, cystic fibrosis and autoimmune diseases.
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Bronwyn Long, DNP, MBA, ACHPN, AOCNS, ACNS-BC, (left) and Katie Rosen, MSN, APRN, ANP-C | |
The NPs in the Palliative/Supportive Care practice manage symptoms, assist with advance care planning, and offer psychosocial support. They provide an intake visit and follow up at one month to discuss the plan of care, or every three months if the plan includes controlled substances. These APPs manage some patients’ pain associated with a condition treated at National Jewish Health, but they do not provide a primary pain service. Patients who have chronic pain or a pain disorder should be referred to an outside pain clinic.
Bronwyn was awarded a $10,000 grant from American Nurses Foundation & Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association in 2012. She served as principal investigator conducting a pilot study, “Improving Quality of Life in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease by Integrating Palliative Approaches to Dyspnea, Anxiety, and Depression.” Study results were published in the December 2014 issue of the Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing.
Katie recently completed a master’s certificate and palliative care, and she is currently expanding her practice to provide palliative care for patients with chronic lung disease, or other diseases which cause respiratory failure, including pulmonary hypertension, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The Pediatric Day Program is in the Division of Pediatric Allergy & Immunology, and is located on the 2nd floor of the Smith building on main campus. This program provides multiday, intensive outpatient therapies for complex allergic and immunologic conditions such as asthma, eczema, environmental allergies, food allergies, food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES), immune deficiency, bronchiectasis and rare pulmonary diseases. Patients stayr 1-2 weeks at a time and receive ongoing education, therapies, diagnostics and care from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. This is the only program of its kind in the U.S. Families come from across the country for the intensive and expert care that we provide.
Elizabeth Gyorkos, PA-C, is the first provider that Day Program patients spend time with. She reviews records, tests and results that patients have brought with them, ask both patients and parents what their goals are in coming to the program and communicates the patient's picture to the Day Program care team. As the team leader, she ensures communication is timely and accurate, that tests results are communicated to the care team and that patients know their schedule and understand what they've learn each day.
Elizabeth developed an Asthma Tune Up (Adherence) Program using the Propeller Health device. This program has helped pediatric patients understand more about asthma, what each of their medications do to help control their disease and become more adherent to their asthma medication plans, which improves control overall.
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This team is a pediatric ambulatory clinical practice that offers clinical studies for newborn babies and their families.
The clinical practice team has been instrumental in assisting new drugs to come to market, participating in novel treatments for disease entities, and contributing to a multitude of cited publications in the asthma/allergy/eczema/immunology field. Most of their work involves pharmaceutical research and National Institutes of Health consortium projects in addition to investigator-initiated trials in house. During the pandemic when a lot of research had to be halted, this team was able to pivot into the study of COVID vaccines in highly allergic patients and studying the response to the vaccines in this group.