Mary Ann Fuchs, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
Vice President of Patient Care & System Chief Nurse Executive, Duke University Health System
Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs, Duke University School of Nursing
Mary Ann Fuchs, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, is the Vice President of Patient Care and System Chief Nurse Executive for Duke University Health System (DUHS) and the Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs for Duke University School of Nursing. She has also served as the President for the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, which is the national professional association of more than 11,000 nurse leaders who manage and facilitate patient care in all settings across the care continuum. AONL is the voice of nursing leadership and a subsidiary of the American Hospital Association (AHA).
As vice president of patient care and system chief nurse executive for DUHS, Fuchs is responsible for the practice of nursing by ensuring excellence in the standard of practice across clinical settings. As a member of the health system executive team, Fuchs supports and facilitates an interdisciplinary team approach to the delivery of care. This includes creating an environment in which collaboration is valued and excellence in clinical care, education and research is promoted and achieved. She provides leadership for Duke home care, infusion and hospice services, education services, case management, accreditation and regulatory affairs as well as centralized nursing services such as flexible staffing and staff promotion programs. She also leads the DUHS Friends of Nursing Program, an endowed program for the recognition of excellence and professional development of nurses. In her role as AONL’s President, Fuchs helped promote AONL’s mission “to shape health care through innovative and expert nursing leadership,” supported the professional development of nurse leaders and promoted effective policy related to nursing and patient care. She inspired nurse leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic, completed a longitudinal study to understand the impact of the pandemic on nurse leaders and finished her tenure as president by co-leading with the AONL CEO Robyn Begley, the development of AONL’s 2022-2024 Strategic Plan.
Fuchs was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2011. She is a fellow in the Wharton Fellows Program in Management for Nurse Executives, and a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow. She is currently the Board Chair for the Center for Child and Family Health in Durham, NC. She serves on the AHA COVID-19 Pathways to Recovery Task Force and in 2019 represented the AHA on the HHS Quality Summit. She led the Duke Graduate Nursing Education program as one of five funded programs by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center. She is a member of the American Nurses Association and Sigma ThetaTau and served as the nurse administrator on the North Carolina Board of Nursing. Fuchs was recognized by the Triangle Business Journal as a Women in Business and has received a Distinguished Alumna award from the Duke University School of Nursing.
Fuchs earned a doctorate in nursing practice; a post master’s certificate in education and her master’s degree in oncology nursing from Duke University; and received her bachelor of science degree in nursing from the State University of New York at Binghamton.