Deb Bakerjian, Ph.D., A.P.R.N., F.A.A.N., F.A.A.N.P., F.G.S.A.
Associate Dean for Practice and Clinical Professor
Deb Bakerjian is the associate dean for practice and a clinical professor at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. As the associate dean for practice, she leads the school’s clinical enterprise, including oversight of clinical faculty practice development and implementation, student clinical placements, UC Davis Health and community strategic partnerships and advocacy, interprofessional practice and clinical partnerships and strategies for the school’s contribution to the Healthy Aging Initiative. As a founding faculty member, she has taught a number of courses in the school over the years including leadership, geriatrics and community connections. She also co-created and taught the only formal course work in quality and patient safety in the health system. She was instrumental in transitioning the family nurse practitioner and physician assistant programs from the School of Medicine to School of Nursing and establishing both as master’s degree programs.
Bakerjian’s research aims to improve the quality of care for aging populations. Her work focuses on patient safety and quality improvement practices in long-term care, particularly nursing homes, as well as interprofessional education and collaborative practice in primary care. She is specifically interested in the roles of nurse practitioners and physician assistants as members of the interprofessional team.
Bakerjian has been consistently funded to lead several workforce enhancement grants by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Song Brown at the state level. Currently, she is the director for three HRSA funded grants; an advanced practice provider primary care fellowship program, an interprofessional training enhancement grant for physician assistants, as well as a grant to develop a nurse-led mobile clinic. Additionally, Bakerjian received $6 milliion in funding from the Department of Labor to train nurse faculty. She is also the co-principal investigator with Dr. Patrick Romano for Cal Long Term Care Compare, a statewide website that provides data to consumers on the quality of long-term care organizations such as nursing homes.
Bakerjian was a Pat Archbold Predoctoral Scholar and a Claire M. Fagin Postdoctoral Fellow at UC San Francisco in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, where she was also an assistant adjunct professor. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Health Policy and Gerontology in 2006 and a Master’s of Science in Nursing in 1992, both from the UCSF School of Nursing. Her doctoral study, “Utilization of Nurse Practitioners in Nursing Homes: A Comparison with Physicians,” received the 2006 Dissertation of the Year Award. Bakerjian earned both a family nurse practitioner and physician assistant certificate from the UC Davis School of Medicine in 1991 and a Bachelor of Science in Health Services Administration from the University of Phoenix in 1983. She received an Associate Degree in Nursing from Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, California, in 1977.
Bakerjian is the co-Director for the UC Davis Healthy Aging Initiative and is a member of the UC Davis Health resource utilization committee. She is active in both state and national organizations associated with nursing, patient safety and quality, and the care of older adults. She is chair of the board of directors for HealthImpact, the California Nursing Workforce Center. She serves on the National Quality Forum’s Skilled Nursing Facility Technical Expert Panel for Serious Reportable Events and Common Formats. She is on the Leadership Development Committee for PALTMed —The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care and a past president of the California Association of Long-Term Care Medicine and the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association.
Bakerjian was awarded the Distinguished Educator in Gerontological Nursing by the Hartford Center for Gerontological Excellence in Nursing. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and the Gerontological Society of America. She has also been inducted into the Western Academy of Nurses.
Contact Information: Phone: 916-734-2145 | E-mail: dbakerjian@health.ucdavis.edu
