Hope Haynes Bussenius, 93MN, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, an assistant clinical professor at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, has been inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP). Bussenius has also been named as an E. Louise Grant Distinguished Alumna from Augusta University, where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) in 1990 and a doctor of nursing practice (DNP) in 2012.
The Fellows of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP) impact national and global health by engaging recognized nurse practitioner (NP) leaders who make outstanding contributions to clinical practice, research, education or policy to enhance the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) mission. The alumni award Bussenius received from Augusta University is named after their late Dean Emeritus E. Louise Grant, whose career spanned 60 years in nursing. Grant was the first dean of the previously-named Medical College of Georgia School of Nursing, serving 21 years in this position.
Not unlike Grant, Bussenius is a pioneering nurse researcher. In 2016, she was awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Award for the Oral Health In Communities and Neighborhoods (OHICAN) project. As part of the Urban Health Initiative (UHI) at Emory University, the OH I Can program addresses the vast oral health disparities that exist for low income and minority families. The dental/healthcare neighborhood program seeks to create a community-wide, comprehensive oral health network in a low income and minority neighborhoods to increase access to oral health education and oral health services.
Her Take 2 Heart initiative is a Transformative Technology Evaluation Assessment Model (2TEAM) using technology to bridge clinical practice, training, research and health policy. This is a project’s goal is to decrease the prevalence of significantly under-diagnosed pre-hypertension and hypertension by improving inaccurate blood pressure measurement in children and adolescents.
Bussenius has also developed two free mobile apps for clinicians based on a similar premise. Pedia BP is a smartphone app with more than 80,000 users that simplifies and speeds up the detection of hypertension in children and adolescents. In addition to saving time, the app helps ensure that blood pressure screenings are conducted accurately and provides immediate follow-up guidance for children who require monitoring or treatment. Her second app, OH-I-CAN, in collaboration with her OHICAN team, was developed to better assess and evaluate poor oral health using the Oral Health Impact Profile – 14 (OHIP-!4) questionnaire. Both apps are connected to repositories which provides real-time data to efficiently assess and evaluate patient outcomes.