Bernadette Melnyk
Dr. Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk – recognized nationally and globally for both her clinical knowledge and her innovative approaches to a wide range of health care challenges – serves as Vice President for Health Promotion and Chief Wellness Officer for The Ohio State University, as well as Helene Fuld Health Trust Professor of Evidence-based Practice at the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University. She also is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Ohio State’s College of Medicine.
Dr. Melnyk’s groundbreaking work spans evidence-based practice, intervention research, child and adolescent mental health, and health and wellness. A frequent keynote speaker at national and international conferences, she has consulted with hundreds of healthcare systems and colleges worldwide on improving quality of care and patient outcomes by implementing and sustaining evidence-based practice.
In 2013, Dr. Melnyk became one of the few women and nurses elected to the Institute of Medicine – a division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine whose members counsel government and private sector leaders to help them make informed health decisions. Election to the IOM is among the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.
Appointed by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials, Dr. Melnyk served a four-year term on the 16-member United States Preventive Services Task Force. That independent group of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine works to improve the health of all Americans by making evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services such as screenings, counseling services, or preventive medications.
She founded the National Interprofessional Education and Practice Collaborative to advance the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Million Hearts® initiative and its goal of preventing one million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. Dr. Melnyk also founded the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities, a collaborative organization to improve population health in the nation’s institutions of higher learning.
Since arriving at Ohio State in 2011, Dr. Melnyk has overseen significant steps toward establishing the nursing program there among the nation’s elite. Academic nursing programs at every level of education (bachelor's, master's and doctoral), based both in-person and online, are ranked among the nation's premier programs by U.S. News & World Report.
In 2015, the Ohio State College of Nursing received a $1 million gift from FloAnn and John Easton to establish an endowed professorship for child and adolescent health – an important step toward improving health outcomes for a key at-risk population.
Among many personal accomplishments in the profession, Dr. Melnyk has secured more than $19 million in sponsored funding from federal agencies as principal investigator and her findings have appeared in more than 280 publications. In 2002, she received the Jessie Scott Award from the American Nurses Association, recognizing her work to improve health care quality through the integration of research, education and practice. Dr. Melnyk was named one of the most 30 influential nursing deans by The Mometrix Blog, which based its selections on data including awards, Top 10 rankings, NIH funding and NCLEX passing percentage.
Dr. Melnyk is co-editor of four books, including Evidence-based Practice in Nursing & Healthcare: A Guide to Best Practice, Implementing EBP: Real World Success Stories,A Practical Guide to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Screening, Early Intervention, and Health Promotion(2ndEd), and Intervention Research: Designing, Conducting, Analyzing and Funding, an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award winner.
Dr. Melnyk is a member of the National Quality Forum’s (NQF) Behavioral Health Standing Committee and the National Institutes of Health’s National Advisory Council for Nursing Research. She serves as editor of the journal, Worldviews on Evidence-based Nursing, and is a board member of U.S. Healthiest, the National Guideline Clearinghouse and the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NGC/NQMC).
Dr. Melnyk earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from West Virginia University, her Master of Science degree with a specialization in nursing care of children and pediatric nurse practitioner from the University of Pittsburgh, and her PhD in clinical research from the University of Rochester – where she also completed her post-master’s certificate as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. She is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, the National Academies of Practice and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
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Hyeryeong Lee, a first-year PhD student from South Korea, previously worked in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), caring for critically ill children.
The children and nurses in the PICU inspired her. “One particularly memorable moment was when a child who had been hospitalized in the PICU for a long time stopped by the PICU to say hello to us in good health after being discharged. The moment truly supported the impact of our work and brought me joy,” Lee said.
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