Winifred Quinn’s passion is to help older adults thrive and live with dignity and to support their families in achieving peace of mind. She puts her passion into action by improving policies that allow people to choose where to live, who to get care from, how to obtain this care, and how to have fun.

Quinn is leading the telehealth policy work for AARP’s think-and-do tank, the Public Policy Institute (PPI), which has led to PPI’s first published research paper on telehealth, “Using Telehealth to Improve Home-Based Care for Older Adults and Family Caregivers.” She also supports an AARP innovations group in developing AARP’s virtual reality products for family caregivers.

When it comes to workforce, Quinn is a proud nurse champion. She co-directs a national campaign that seeks to improve health and health care through nursing, the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. Her team supports “Action Coalitions” in each state and the District of Columbia that work to implement Institute of Medicine’s recommendations made in a 2011 report, Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. Quinn leads the Campaign’s work to ensure a more diverse nursing workforce, nursing school faculty, and nurse leadership.

Quinn initiated a national coalition that led to Medicare funding graduate-level nursing education for the first time. She leads state-level policy work that has helped modernize laws in more than 20 states improving millions of people’s access to care provided by nurses. In this role, she places a strong emphasis on coalition building.

Quinn is an alumna of Union County College and Douglass College, Rutgers University. She received her PhD in Health Communication from Rutgers University School of Communication and Information. Her public policy and innovations work began as a family caregiver for her parents. In 2018 the American Association of Nurse Practitioners inducted her as an honorary fellow. In 2021 the American Academy of Medicine inducted Quinn as an honorary fellow.