The AAACN Board of Directors (BOD) believe it is extremely important to include a variety of perspectives and input from all stakeholders while guiding the operations and future of AAACN. With that in mind, AAACN introduced a new Emerging Professional Fellow position to the Board in early 2022. In April 2022, AAACN proudly welcomed its first two Emerging Professional Fellow Board Members.
Brandy Williamson, BSN, RN, CPN
Brandy Williamson works for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta as Ambulatory Nursing Manager for Children’s Physician Group, a large multispecialty pediatric physician practice. Brandy spent the majority of her career as a Pediatric ICU nurse, before moving to an outpatient assistant nurse manager role in 2018.
She leads ambulatory shared leadership for her organization and is passionate about safe patient care and nursing professional development. Brandy joined AAACN at the beginning of 2020 and is looking forward to attending and presenting a poster at the 47th Annual AAACN Conference in May 2022.
Jessica Polk, RN, BSN, MPH
Jessica currently works as a Registered Nurse Care Coordinator at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, GA, and was introduced to the AAACN organization during the onboarding process with the department in 2019. Jessica is passionate about bridging the gaps in our fragmented, expensive, and inequitable U.S. healthcare system, which has led to her dedication to developing new skills and proficiencies to impact the highest-risk patient populations.
As a nurse care coordinator, Jessica has completed the Care Coordination and Transition Management (CCTM) Core Curriculum and read numerous articles published through AAACN to guide her nursing practice and continue her educational goals. Her passion for CCTM began soon after graduating from nursing school and started working on a medical-surgical unit in Alabama.
She quickly discovered the revolving door of avoidable patient hospital readmissions and knew more needed to be done to impact lives by promoting health and preventing chronic diseases. This passion prompted her to achieve a Master's Degree from San Diego State University in Public Health with a concentration in Health Promotion and Behavioral Science.
While earning this degree, Jessica had the privilege of partnering with community leaders, academics, and non-profit organizations to create and implement health programs within the community and across the border in Mexico. In fulfillment of her thesis research, she completed a Systematic Literature Review on "The Optimal Evidenced-Based Interventions for Hospital Transition Programs in the Prevention of Unnecessary Hospital Readmissions."
Her love and passion for intellectual progression have directed her to earn a Doctorate of Public Health at Georgia Southern University. Jessica is currently completing her dissertation research titled Evaluating the Relationship Between Enrollment and Achievement of Care Plan Goals Across Patient Demographic Characteristics in a Nurse-Led Ambulatory Care Coordination and Transition Management (CCTM) Department within an Accountable Care Organization in Metro-Atlanta.