Karen L. Kennedy-Evans to Receive Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award at HMP’s 2nd Annual Post-Acute Care Symposium

The event is co-located with the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care/Wound Healing Society meeting

MALVERN, PA (JANUARY 14, 2020) - As part of its continued work to recognize wound care professionals who dedicate themselves to improving patient care and outcomes, HMP, a leading healthcare event and education company, today announced that Karen L Kennedy-Evans will receive the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award at HMP’s Post-Acute Care Symposium (PACS). PACS will be held May 15-16, 2020 and is co-located with the 33rd annual Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC)/Wound Healing Society (WHS) meeting, May 13-17, in San Diego, California.

Established by a group of volunteer wound care professionals, the peer recognition award honors a wound care specialist who has dedicated his/her career to caring for elderly residents within post-acute care settings.

Karen L. Kennedy-Evans, RN, FNP, APRN-BC, is President of KL Kennedy LLC. She has been a nurse for more than 50 years, a nurse practitioner for 46 years, and has more than 45 years of experience working in long-term care. In 1974, she became the first family nurse practitioner in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1983, she started one of the first wound care teams in long-term care while working at the Byron Health Center, a 500-bed long term care facility in Fort Wayne. During this time, Kennedy-Evans discovered a particular phenomenon that occurs before death that became known as the “Kennedy Terminal Ulcer,” leading to her authorship of the Kennedy Terminal Ulcer guide and fostering a new understanding about end-of-life care and clinical liability issues.

Kennedy-Evans has served on numerous industry boards, including the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP, now known as the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel - NPIAP), the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care (AAWC), the For Recognition of the Adult Immobilized Life (FRAIL), and Skin Changes At Life’s End (SCALE). She has published numerous articles and book chapters, and has lectured extensively throughout the world.

“When we considered the list of candidates for the PACS Lifetime Achievement Award, Karen Kennedy-Evans’ name was at the top,” said Diane Krasner, PhD, RN, FAAN, co-chair for the symposium. “Karen is uniquely deserving to become the inaugural recipient in light of an outstanding career dedicated to compassionate wound caring for elderly populations residing in long-term care facilities.”

“When I joined HMP in 1991 and first became involved in the field, Karen was someone who was always available to answer questions and provide the guidance that contributed to my understanding of wound care,” said Peter Norris, senior vice president, HMP. “Her innate goodness and passion for both the specialty of long-term care and the thousands of residents she’s served over the past 40+ years is remarkable.”

The 33rd annual Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC)/Wound Healing Society (WHS) meeting is the largest wound care gathering in the world. To learn more, visit, pacsymposium.com and sawcspring.com.

ABOUT HMP

HMP is the force behind Healthcare Made Practical—and is a multichannel leader in healthcare events and education, with a mission to improve patient care. The company produces accredited medical education events and clinically relevant, evidence-based content for the global healthcare community across a range of therapeutic areas. Its brands include Consultant360, the year-round, award-winning platform relied upon by primary care providers and other specialists; Psych Congress, the largest independent mental health meeting in the U.S.; EMS World Expo, North America's largest EMT and paramedic event; and the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC), the largest wound care meeting in the world. For more information, visit hmpglobal.com.