Wilbanks honored by AANA Foundation

Wilbanks’ work with the closed claims research team earned him the Researcher of the Year Award.

bryan wilbanks webUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing Assistant Professor Bryan Wilbanks, Ph.D., has received the John F. Garde Researcher of the Year Award for his extensive work with a team of researchers assembled by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists Foundation to improve outcomes for anesthesia patients.

The John F. Garde Researcher of the Year Award recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to the practice of anesthesia through research. Wilbanks and his teammates were recognized at an AANA Foundation dinner held Sept. 10 at the Nurse Anesthesia Annual Congress in Seattle, Washington.

He was one of 17 volunteers nationwide who, starting in 2015, reviewed 245 anesthesia-related insurance cases that served as the foundation for the team’s most recent project, “The AANA Foundation Malpractice Closed Claims Study: A Descriptive Analysis.” He traveled to Chicago one weekend a month over 18 months to participate with the team’s research.

The team built a database of information from the 245 reviewed cases that was then used to complete other aspects of the project.

Wilbanks contributed to four abstracts that resulted from his work on the project.

He is the principal investigator on “The Role of Transfer of Care in Anesthesia-Related Closed Claims,” which has been submitted to the AANA Journal, and “The Role of Documentation Quality in Anesthesia-Related Closed Claims: A Descriptive Qualitative Study.” He was co-investigator on “The AANA Foundation Malpractice Closed Claims Study: A Descriptive Analysis,” which has been published in the AANA Journal, and “Obstetric Anesthesia Complications.”