Denise Buonocore

Denise Buonocore, MSN, RN, ACNPC, CCNS, CCRN, CHFN, serves a two-year term as chair-elect on the AACN Certification Corporation board of directors from July 1, 2016, through June 30, 2018. She previously served as treasurer and a director on the AACN board (2004-2007) and a director on the AACN Certification Corporation board (2005-2007; 2015-2016).

Buonocore is acute care nurse practitioner for heart failure services at St. Vincent's Multispecialty Group, St. Vincent's Medical Center, Bridgeport, Connecticut, where her clinical practice involves providing care for patients with heart failure (HF) in inpatient and outpatient settings. She is clinical lead for quality initiatives, including safe care transitions and reducing readmissions in patients with HF.

An AACN member since 1989, Buonocore has a long relationship with AACN, including liaison work, most recently in regard to advanced practice initiatives with CHEST and the Society of Critical Care Medicine. She serves on the editorial board of AACN Advanced Critical Care and is a reviewer for Critical Care Nurse. She has also been a member of the Research Abstract Review Panel, Advanced Practice Advisory Team, Program Advisory Panel, CE Article Review Panel, Advanced Practice Work Group and Board Advisory Team. She is a current member and past board member and chapter president of the South Central Connecticut Chapter.

Additional affiliations include membership in the American Heart Association, American Association of Heart Failure Nurses, CHEST Program Planning Committee, 2014 and 2015, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and Connecticut APRN Society. She has served as a medical mission volunteer at home and abroad in the Caribbean and Central America, most recently in Haiti with the Crudem Foundation, helping to develop an HF program at the Hospital Sacre Coeur in Milot.

Buonocore is a national and international speaker on many aspects of cardiac, palliative and critical care, safe care transitions, certification and healthy work environments. She is an End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium trainer with a passion for helping patients and families make difficult care decisions and mentoring nurses to have these conversations. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, most recently on palliative care and HF.

Her awards include the Connecticut Hospital Association Health Care Hero Award in May 2015 and St. Vincent's Clinical Excellence in 2011.

In 1992, Buonocore received a Master of Science in Nursing from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, and a Bachelor of Science in Professional Arts: health care administration at St. Joseph's College, Windham, Maine, in 1988. She earned an RN diploma from Bridgeport Hospital School of Nursing, Connecticut, in 1979.