2013 Summit Speakers: Amy Berman

Amy Berman, BS, RN
SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER, THE JOHN A. HARTFORD FOUNDATION
Panelist, Panel I: Empowering the Public to Make Informed Decisions and Plans

Amy Berman is a Senior Program Officer with the John A. Hartford Foundation.  She heads the Foundation’s Integrating and Improving Services grants, focusing on the development and dissemination of innovative, cost-effective models of care that improve health outcomes for older adults.  For example, Ms. Berman is responsible for a number of efforts to improve transitions of care led by Eric Coleman, Mary Naylor, and the Society for Hospital Medicine, as well as the Foundation’s work to advance palliative care led by Diane Meier and the Center to Advance Palliative Care.  She also directs a number of collaborations with federal partners such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and the Administration for Community Living.   Ms. Berman openly shares her experiences living with Stage IV breast cancer.  She has presented to the Institute on Medicine and has authored numerous pieces about her health care choices, palliative care and implications for patients, practice and policy.  Her piece in Health Affairs, Living Life In My Own Way—And Dying That Way As Well, was the most read in the journal’s history for the month of May.  Her article in the Washington Post was the most read in the National section.  She has been featured in Forbes and on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show.  She also blogs on the Hartford Foundation’s HealthAGEnda site (www.jhartfound.org/blog) and can be followed on Twitter as @jhartfound and @notesonnursing.

Prior to the Foundation, Ms. Berman served as Nursing Education Initiatives Director for the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing at New York University College of Nursing.  Among her responsibilities at New York University, Ms. Berman developed resources and programs to improve the geriatric expertise of nursing educators and clinicians.  She conducted a national survey on gerontological nursing content in baccalaureate programs.  Her findings were cited in the Institute on Medicine’s report, Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce.  Before joining New York University, Ms. Berman worked in home health care administration for twenty years with responsibility for quality improvement, health information technology, accreditation, and regulatory compliance.  She served as JCAHO coordinator and as accreditation consultant in performance improvement for a variety of health care institutions. Ms. Berman served on the New York State Department of Health’s Emergency Preparedness Task Force and on the professional advisory boards of health care institutions in New York City.

Ms. Berman is an appointedmember of CMS’ Partnership for Patients Patient and Family Engagement Network, the Aging Task Force for Healthy People 2020 and HRSA’s Patient Safety Clinical Pharmacy Services Leadership Coordinating Council.  She is a member of Academy Health, the Gerontological Society of America, and the honor society of nursing, Sigma Theta Tau. Ms. Berman has been the recipient numerous honors for her advocacy on behalf of older adults and those facing serious illness.  In 2011 she received the President’s Award from the National League for Nursing for reshaping nursing education.  In 2012 the American Academy of Nursing presented her with the Civitas Award for her policy and advocacy efforts.  And the international honor society of nursing, Sigma Theta Tau, established the Amy J. Berman Geriatric Nurse Leadership Award which is awarded at their biennial meeting.  She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from New York University College of Nursing, a Bachelor of Science degree in health care administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Geriatric Scholar Certificate from the Consortium of New York Geriatric Education Centers.