Mary Naylor, PhD, MSN, is the Marian S. Ware professor in Gerontology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and the director of the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health. Dr. Naylor also is co-faculty director of Living Independently for Elders.
For 20 years, Dr. Naylor has led an interdisciplinary program of research designed to improve outcomes and reduce costs of care for vulnerable community-based elders. To date, Dr. Naylor and her research team have completed three National Institute of Nursing Research-funded randomized clinical trials focusing on discharge planning and home follow-up of high-risk elders by advanced practice nurses. Through her research that uses advanced practice nurses, Dr. Naylor has added to what is known about advanced practice nurse practice. As part of Penn’s Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Program, Dr. Naylor is leading a team of clinical scholars in the implementation and evaluation of a similar care model aimed at enhancing the quality of care of cognitively impaired elders and their caregivers.
As part of the senior year curriculum, Dr. Naylor teaches a "Senior Inquiry" class and shares her vast research experience with seniors who will work closely with an advisor from the standing faculty. The students select a topic and are instructed on the art of doing a thorough literature search, building a table of evidence, and performing a synthesis of the state of the science on that topic. Many of the papers have been accepted for publication in major scholarly journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Society, an unusual event in nursing.
