Tara O'Brien PhD, RN, CNE
Dr. Tara O’Brien is an assistant professor with 26 years of nursing experience working with underserved populations living with chronic disease in rural and urban communities. She brings 14 years of knowledge for integrating technology in the classroom to promote active learning and also using technology to achieve health goals in research.
Research Interests
Dr. O’Brien is an early stage principal investigator testing non-pharmacological real-time self-management interventions to promote health outcomes in kidney transplant recipients at The Ohio State University College of Nursing. Her research seeks to shift the paradigm of using printed materials for promoting self-care to using wearable sensors and working with health coaches. In prior work, she found that kidney transplant recipients using a multicomponent intervention for wearing an activity tracker, in combination with health coaching to monitor physical activity, had improved resting heart rates compared to a control group that only used the activity tracker.