Kim Cox RN, MSN Clinical Nurse Specialist kcox@cc.nih.gov

Kim Cox, MSN, RN, is a Behavioral Health Clinical Nurse Specialist within the Research and Practice Development Service of the Clinical Center Nursing Department at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Kim did undergraduate work in liberal arts and biology at Reed College in Portland, Oregon in the early 1970’s.  She received a BSN from George Mason University in 1980.  She gained formative psychiatric nursing experience in a private, intensive-care hospital setting before coming to work in human subjects research here at the NIH Clinical Center in 1982.  While working as a staff nurse in the 1980’s, Kim completed an MSN at The Catholic University of America, specializing in advanced practice psychiatric nursing and sub-specializing in collegiate education.  She is now preparing for entry into The Catholic University of America PhD program.

Kim oversees clinical outcomes for the Child Psychiatric Research Program.  Kim specializes in nursing care for schizophreniform disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, childhood-onset psychotic and affective disorders.  Given her enduring interest in the life sciences, Kim offers a holistic perspective on the effects psychiatric disorders have on real people and their lives.  She particularly helps nurses and interdisciplinary teams understand the inter-relationship between what we think we know about the biological bases of psychiatric disorders, and how to apply this appreciation to individuals.

Kim is experienced in program design and maintenance in both inpatient settings and long term care facilities.  As a private consultant, she helped design and implement a specialized dementia care program.  She has a long history of invitational national speaking on topics relevant to biological psychiatry and psychiatric nursing.  Here at the Clinical Center, Kim has programmatically orchestrated the integration of specialized clinical management in the service of biomedical psychiatric research programs.

Kim is most well-known for her use of frameworks, applying and integrating a variety of disciplinary perspectives in novel and effective ways to meet human needs while producing research outcomes.  The programs she has worked with have sustained significant declines in the use of seclusion and restraint, to the point of near elimination.  She has historically been assigned to the most acute-care psychiatric inpatient programs, brought in to assist in the identification of research participants’ needs and putting together the necessary programmatic supports to produce intensive-care psychiatric research outcomes.  She leads programs to go beyond safety, to provide individualized patient comfort.

Additionally, Kim is interested in formative nursing education.  She believes that to ultimately influence the way nurses practice, we must educate nurses to think differently at the primary level of baccalaureate education.  Hence, she has a special interest in integrating curriculum design and research.

Program Interests

Behavioral Health Restraint Reduction/Suicide Prevention Monitoring
Organizes BH service and NPCS efforts to reduce, and where possible, eliminate restraint and seclusion use; this includes medical-surgical programs of care when consulted.  Oversees revision of standards of practice and procedures related to the prevention and use of seclusion and restraint through Shared Governance system.  Evidence-Based Practice project on Child Psychiatry Research Program of Care is focused on the early identification of patient needs underlying acting-out behaviors;  individualized care planning processes within a system of primary nursing care delivery and interdisciplinary care are used to provide for patient safety – and comfort.

Behavioral Health Liaison for Nursing and Patient Care Services
Clinically supports medical-surgical staff/leadership/interdisciplinary team members when consulted to identify psycho-social needs of research participants outside of NIMH research programs.

Crisis Prevention Institute Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Training Program
Senior-level instructor for CPI NVCI.  Coordinates and provides 2-day intensive violence prevention-intervention workshop as needed for the BH nursing staff, interdisciplinary staff, NPCS staff, NIH police, and others as requested.  Provides developmental supervision to newer CPI instructors.

Advanced Practice Nursing Preceptor
Provides psychiatric-mental health clinical preceptor services as requested by Advanced Practice P-MH programs (Catholic University of America, University of Maryland).

Combined Neuroscience Institutional Review Committee Member
Provides evaluative input as primary and general IRB member for National Institute of Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse, National Institute of Mental Health, National Eye Institute, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke & National Institute of Dental, Cranio-Facial Research.

Evidence-Based Practice Project:  Depression Associated with Chronic Medical Illness
Contributes psychiatric-mental health nursing input to the design of this Ambulatory Care Clinic projected initiated and organized by Dirk Darnell RN and Christine Lafeer RN

Committees

Clinical Practice Committee
CRN 2010: Nursing Research Pipeline
Evidence Based Practice Steering Committee