Marjorie Funk

Marjorie Funk has been on the faculty at the Yale School of Nursing since 1984. She received a BA in religion from Wheaton College in Massachusetts, a BSN from Cornell University – New York Hospital School of Nursing, a MSN in Medical-Surgical Nursing with a clinical specialty in cardiovascular nursing from the Yale School of Nursing, and a PhD in Chronic Disease Epidemiology from Yale University. Her teaching responsibilities include statistics, research, electrocardiography, and clinical supervision in cardiac critical care.

The focus of Professor Funk’s research is the wise use of technology in the care of critically ill patients with heart disease. She has examined the appropriate and safe use of technology, its equitable distribution, and the human-machine interface. The use of a particular type of technology–electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring–is a thread throughout her research career. 

In 2008, Marge received a $3.9 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for the Practical Use of the Latest Standards for Electrocardiography (PULSE) Trial. The PULSE trial is a five-year, sixteen-site, randomized clinical trial evaluating the effect of implementing American Heart Association practice standards for ECG monitoring on nurses’ knowledge, quality of care, and patient outcomes. The intervention consists of an online ECG monitoring education program and strategies to implement and sustain change in practice.  The PULSE trial is an example of translational research in which the effectiveness of an intervention in real-world clinical practice is being tested.

Professor Funk’s research has provided an opportunity for her to mentor both students and hospital nurses.  She is co-chair of the Nursing Research Committee at Yale New Haven Hospital and helps hospital nurses through all phases of the research process, including presenting and publishing. She has a clinical association with the Cardiac ICU. Professor Funk is active in the American Heart Association, the American Association of Critical-Care Nursing, and the Eastern Nursing Research Society.