Akron Children's Hospital
Elizabeth (Betsy) A. Bryson, RN, MSN, PPCNP-BC, is a pediatric nurse practitioner at Akron Children’s Hospital who has specialized in the care of infants, children and teen with asthma and cystic fibrosis (CF) for the past 43 years. She is a graduate of Bowling Green State University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing and then a master’s degree in nursing from Kent State University fifteen years later.
Her special interests in caring for this population include:
1. Partnering with patients & families through communication
2. Adherence
3. Use of quality improvement to standardize care of the patient with a chronic pulmonary disease
4. Multidisciplinary teams
5. Infection control with patients with cystic fibrosis
6. Transition of the patient with chronic pulmonary disease to adult care
Betsy has presented to both professional and community group on a variety of these topics related to asthma and CF both locally and nationally. She was a co-instructor for the 12 years at the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference for a special class, “Nuts and Bolts of CF” for new CF team members. She has also been a keynote speaker at two international conferences, one in Melbourne Australia and one in Birmingham, UK.
As a consultant for several initiatives, Betsy is a trainer for the PEP (Partnership Enhancement Program) which teaches CF Team members skills to enhance their communication with patients and families, coaches CF teams on QI and trains CF teams on the use of CF RISE, an education program.
Betsy has published a chapter on CF in a nursing book on Chronic Illnesses along with being a contributing author on two national consensus guidelines on Infection Control and Prevention in CF. Over the past ten years, Betsy has been involved in Quality Improvement work at the CF Foundation, both in a collaborative with her own team and as a QI coach for other CF teams in the US for over 10 years, She is the QI liaison for the Division of Pulmonary Medicine, CF Center, APP lead for Division of Pulmonary Medicine and a facilitator for the One Team: Relationship- Centered Communication Program.
Her research work has been in transition of CF patients to adult care, and she was the primary investigator at Akron Children’s for a multi-center study, I CARE. Betsy has been the recipient of the Lois Hodgson Nursing Excellence Award at Akron Children’s Hospital, the Barbara Donoho Distinguished Leadership in Learning Award at Kent State University, 2015 Mary Kontos Care Champion National Award from Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.2020 Akron Childrens' Hospital Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022 and Akron Children’s Hospital Advanced Practice Provider Award for Excellence in Practice
PEP--Partnership Enhancement Program
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
8:00 AM – 3:00 PM ET