May 17, 2016

AACN honors Barbara Safriet for distinguished career, contributions to critical care

Visiting professor Barbara Safriet — health law and policy expert who advocates for advanced practice nursing — is honored for extraordinary contributions to critical care and AACN mission, vision.

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) honors Barbara Safriet, JD, with the 2016 Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career, one of AACN’s highest honors.

Safriet will receive the award for exceptional contributions throughout her 45-year legal career that enhanced the care of critically ill patients and their families, and furthered AACN’s mission and vision. The presentation will occur during the 2016 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition, New Orleans, May 16-19.

“Barbara’s contributions to advanced practice nursing are legendary among experts in licensure and credentialing,” said AACN national president Karen McQuillan. RN, MS, CNS-BC, CCRN, CNRN, FAAN. “As a specialist in health law and policy, she recognized that improving healthcare outcomes required workforce reform and challenged unnecessary barriers to nursing practice.”

For the past seven years, Safriet has taught at Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon, as a visiting professor of health law and policy. She was a member of the law school’s full-time faculty from 1976 to 1988.

She then served as associate dean for academic affairs and a lecturer in law at Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, for 18 years. She was the founding adviser and member of the advisory board of the peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, from 2001 to 2009.

Learn more about the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.