Dr. Laura M. Wagner, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Community Health Systems at the UCSF School of Nursing. Dr. Wagner holds the prestigious Winnifred Montgomery Endowed Chair in Aging. Her extensive research from the past two decades focuses on enhancing the nursing workforce. Her primary research pillars include: Patient Safety: Managing adverse event reporting, safety culture, accreditation, and fall prevention in nursing homes; Long-Term Care Workforce: Studying the clinical experiences, training, and working conditions of healthcare staff in residential and home-based settings, especially related to caring for people living with dementia; and Quality Improvement: Developing evidence-based nursing care processes to optimize both the efficiency and ethics of patient care.
Dr. Wagner was formerly an Assistant Professor at New York University Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing and Baycrest Health Sciences- Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, Ontario Canada where she continues to be an Adjunct Scientist. Her landmark studies have influenced the creation of a warning label on portable bed siderails and guided patient safety activities for organizations such as the National Quality Forum, AHRQ, the Joint Commission, and the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (now Healthcare Excellence Canada). She leads the development and now revision of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario Best Practice Guideline for Alternatives to Restraint Use. She also serves on the Board of Directors at Heritage on the Marina and is the UCSF Health scholarship development specialist. Dr. Wagner is the Deputy Director of the UCSF Health Workforce Research Center in Long Term Care, and collaborates with a team of researchers to enhance the dementia care workforce on the UCSF Advancing Workforce Analysis and Research for Dementia (AWARD) Network and is a core lead for the National Dementia Workforce Study.
Her degrees in nursing are from Case Western Reserve University (BSN), University of Pennsylvania (MSN), and Emory University (PhD).