Louise C. O'Keefe, MSN, CRNP, CDE, a UAB School of Nursing PhD student, received the 2011-2012 Outstanding Regional Nurse Practitioner Award for North Alabama. The award was presented by The Nurse Practitioner Alliance of Alabama (NPAA) and recognizes diligence, dedication, leadership, outcomes, and patient care. This honor serves as a testament to the difference advanced practice nurses make across the state and celebrates individual contributions to deliver and advocate for outstanding patient care.
Louise was recognized for opening the first nurse practitioner run faculty and staff clinic at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAHuntsville) in 2007 where she serves as Clinic Director. Since 2007, the clinic has served more than 740 patients for a total of 2,620 visits. She has implemented several wellness initiatives within the clinic including vaccination updates, tuberculosis, blood pressure and diabetes screening along with two other part-time nurse practitioners. She and her team have advocated for increasing services available to UAHuntsville employees as well as promoting the clinic throughout the university community. Louise works hard to fulfill the clinic's mission of providing on-site, accessible, and quality healthcare.
In addition to serving as Clinic Director, Louise serves as a Nurse Educator and Clinical Assistant Professor at the UAHuntsville College of Nursing. She earned her Associate's degree in nursing from Prince George's Community College (Largo, Md.), and undergraduate and graduate degrees in nursing from George Mason University (Fairfax, Va.). She is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program at The University of Alabama at Birmingham and recently completed her doctoral coursework. Louise plans to complete her doctoral dissertation examining the effect of occupational stress on the health of employees within the university community in 2013.
