Janet Prvu Bettger, ScD, FAHA is an assistant professor and health services researcher at the Duke University School of Nursing and Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI), and a Senior Fellow of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. She serves as a Senior Scientist for the Duke Translational Nursing Institute (DTNI), a member of the Duke University Health System Evidence-based Practice Nursing Council, and was a co-investigator of Duke’s AHRQ funded Evidence-based Practice Center.
Dr. Bettger’s research is dedicated to improving health care quality and care coordination for older adults with chronic conditions, particularly stroke and those at risk for functional decline or rehospitalization. She is the principal investigator (PI) on a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) grant to study the comparative effectiveness of rehabilitation services for survivors of an acute ischemic stroke. As a project PI for Duke’s NINR funded ADAPT Center she is studying cognitive status changes among stroke patients receiving acute rehabilitation. Related to these large database studies is the implementation research she leads on transitional care and interdisciplinary interventions to prevent adverse events.
Dr. Bettger received her BA from the University of Western Ontario, Canada and her MS from the University of Wisconsin–LaCrosse where she studied community reintegration for stroke and brain-injured patients transitioning from hospital to home. Her doctoral training in Rehabilitation Sciences, completed at Boston University, concluded with an investigation of patterns of functional recovery and factors affecting outcomes in patients transitioning home following acute rehabilitation. While working on her doctorate, she also worked in state government as the director of the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry. Dr. Bettger completed post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania with a NIH NRSA research fellowship in neurorehabilitation, a research fellowship at the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health, and a Switzer Fellowship funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to study the role of the environment on functional outcomes. She completed additional research training at Duke as a mentored scholar in comparative effectiveness research funded by AHRQ.
