Hayden named Kentucky Racing Health Services Center director

Dedra Hayden, M.S.N., A.P.R.N.-B.C., assistant professor, University of Louisville School of Nursing, will lead the Kentucky Racing Health Services Center (KRHSC) as its new director.

Hayden succeeds Sara Robertson, D.N.P., A.P.R.N., who accepted a new leadership post at the school as director of the doctorate of nursing program.

“I am so fortunate to work at KRHSC, I feel very privileged to lead the Center as its director. Not everybody is so lucky to have such fulfilling work,” Hayden said.

Hayden, who advanced her clinical training at KRHSC while a student in the Master of Science in Nursing program at UofL in 2009, says she grew to love working with the people who visited the clinic. After just one year of private practice, Hayden was recruited to return to the university as a member of the faculty.

As the first nurse practitioner appointed at the University of Louisville School of Dentistry in 2012, she was mentored in oral medicine, and learned how to treat the medically complex dental patient. She continues to utilize the KRHSC to facilitate interprofessional collaboration with the dental school by rotating graduate practice dental residents through the clinic.

“This compliments our other health care provision at KRHSC because many patients have unmet oral health needs,” she said.

Hayden will graduate in 2018 as part of the inaugural class of the doctorate of nursing practice program.

About the Kentucky Racing Health Services Center (KRHSC)

Located a block from Churchill Downs, the Kentucky Racing Health Services Center is a partnership between the School of Nursing and the Kentucky Racing Health & Welfare Fund. The Center provides comprehensive health care to backside workers, including assistant trainers, grooms, hot walkers and stable hands. The Center was recently designated an innovative model by the American Academy of Nursing.