Pat Ford-Roegner, MSW, RN, FAAN

Chief Executive Officer
American Academy of Nursing

Pat Ford-Roegner was appointed CEO of the Academy in July 2006. Pat has more than 30 years experience in national health policy, organizational management and governmental affairs. She combines her clinical nursing experiences with the community organizing training to advocate for common sense health care. Pat is known for her work to engage nurses, physicians and other health professionals to be heard by policy makers at the national, state and local levels, including the White House and Congress. Pat builds effective coalitions to reach consensus on issues and demonstrates her commitment to diversity by active engagement with individuals and groups. She is a Board member of the patient centered National Health Council and serves on the Advisory Board for the National Partnership to Prevent Chronic Disease.

Pat joined AAN from the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), where she was Executive Director. She was credited with pumping new life into AIMBE’s membership service programs and, particularly, its public policy initiatives. She built new and stronger relationships with Members of Congress, administration officials and the leadership of key institutions such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

She was a founding member of the National Health Policy Council, a non-profit group that hosted presidential candidate forums on health care in the 1980s and 1990s. Pat is co-founder of the Nightingale Policy Group, which promotes nursing's expertise on a wide range of health issues and has a major goal of putting a human face on the health care debate.

Pat’s career included service as Atlanta regional director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1993 – 1999, overseeing more than 500 employees and more than 20 percent of the agency’s national budget. One of the few nurses who has held a presidential appointment, she led that region to become the first to successfully implement Children Health Initiative Programs in each of its eight states. Prior to that she held a White House appointment co-leading the Health Professionals Council working on health care reform.

Pat was inducted as an AAN Fellow in 1998. She received the 1995 Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Social Work and Social Policy. Pat holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work and Public Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy from West Chester State University in Pennsylvania and an Associate’s Degree in Nursing Science from Gwynedd Mercy College in Pennsylvania.