Empowered Work Teams in Long-Term Care: Strategies for Improving Outcomes for Residents and Staff (Yeatts, Cready, & Noelker)

Dale Yeatts, Ph.D.

Dale Yeatts, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas. His primary areas of study are empowered work teams, gerontology, the workplace, and nursing homes. Dr. Yeatts has received large grants from the National Science Foundation, Commonwealth Fund, and Texas Advanced Research Program to examine “what works” in the case of self-managed work teams in both manufacturing and long-term care settings. He has published his work in a variety of places including several books (e.g., High Performing Self-Managed Work Teams: A Comparison of Theory to Practice) and academic and professional journals (e.g., The Gerontologist and Journal of Gerontological Nursing).

Cynthia M. Cready, Ph.D.

Cynthia M. Cready, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas. Her research interests include long-term care of elders, family, and racial/ethnic differentiation and inequality. Her articles on these topics have been published in a variety of journals, including The Gerontologist, The Milbank Quarterly, Health Services Research, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Social Science Quarterly, and others.

Linda S. Noelker, Ph.D.

Linda S. Noelker, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President for Planning and Organizational Resources and the Director of the Katz Policy Institute at the Benjamin Rose Institute. Dr. Noelker received her graduate degrees from Case Western Reserve University where she is an Adjunct Professor of Sociology. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of The Gerontologist, the leading scientific journal in applied aging research, practice and policy. Dr. Noelker holds leadership positions in the American Society on Aging and the Gerontological Society of America, the two major professional societies in the field of aging. She received the 2005 American Society on Aging Award for exemplary contributions to the field of gerontology and the 2005 Distinguished Career in Gerontology Award from the Behavioral and Social Sciences section of the Gerontological Society of America. Throughout her career, she has conducted research on the nature and effects of family care for frail aged, patterns of service use by older adults and their family caregivers, and sources of stress and job satisfaction among direct care workers.