Drive to Deprescribe: Designing Your Deprescribing Intervention (June 2021)

A specialist of internal medicine and geriatric care, Dr. Arif Nazir became Signature’s Chief Medical Officer in January 2016. Dr. Nazir brings more than 12 years of leadership experience from his previous role with the Optimistic Project. He has also received recognition for his work in implementing Indiana’s nursing home value-based purchasing system and his extraordinary work as a faculty member of Indiana University.

Dr. Nazir was drawn to Signature HealthCARE’s vision of revolutionizing care in the post-acute and long-term care settings. He continues to work on creating the consistent application of basic and foundational, evidence-based geriatric care, and he aims to partner with the best healthcare systems in Signature’s markets.

Dr. Pruskowski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy and the Director of Geriatric Pharmacy Research, Division of Geriatrics, in the School of Medicine, as well as the Associate Director for Education and Evaluation within the Pittsburgh Veteran Affairs Technology Enhancing Cognition and Health Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (TECH-GRECC).

Dr. Sabine von Preyss-Friedman is an Internist and Geriatric Medical Specialist who has practiced in Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) since her fellowship at the University of Washington. She first became a certified Medical Director in 1992 and has since been passionately engaged in the Medical Direction of SNFs. In 2011, she was honored by AMDA/Society of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine (now PALTMed) as Medical Director of the Year.As a co-chair of AMDA's acclaimed D2D/Drive to deprescribe initiative she has won the John Gladstone award as well as AMDA's Choosing Wisely award. In addition to providing services as Medical Director for several facilities in the Seattle area, she is an Associate Clinical Professor Emerita at the University of Washington and serves as Chief Medical Officer of Avalon Healthcare and Caldera Care.
Dr. von Preyss-Friedman is deeply involved in quality improvement, developing standards, and outcome measures in SNFs, and successfully translating medical evidence into clinical care. Her mission is to support the best possible medical care for all patients.
Dr. von Preyss-Friedman currently is the president – elect of PALTMed/formerly AMDA and immediate past president of the WA Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term care Medicine.

Annette Craig Wenzler, MBA,BSN, LNHA has been involved in long term care since the early 90’s. She has had a rounded and successful career serving in a variety of roles including Director of Nursing, Nurse Consultant and Vice President of Clinical Services. She is currently the Chief Nursing Officer for Signature HealthCARE in Louisville, Ky.  Annette graduated from nursing school with her BSN from Union University, Jackson, Tennessee and later obtained her Master’s in Business Administration with a focus in healthcare from University of Miami. Annette began her career in the acute-care setting and grew her  career path by serving as the Director of Emergency Services and the as Director of the Cardiac Progressive Care Unit. Among her many accomplishments, she worked with others to develop and out-of-the-box clinical management process for the units and floors contained within the cardiac services. Creating change through a person-center direction is her passion and she has bee pursuing it since the mid-2000’s. Annette is a Certified Eden Associate and has presented multiple education sessions and training event with her organization as well as Pioneer Network and EDEN Alternative.