Meet the West Health Accelerator Team: Kimberly Claude, DNP, APRN, ANP-BC, NEA-BC
Kimberly Claude, DNP, APRN, ANP-BC, NEA-BC, joined the West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham team in June 2026 as the lead of geriatric practice for Mass General Hospital.
As a nurse practitioner with expertise in geriatrics, Claude is helping advance more individualized, age-appropriate care for older adult patients at Mass General and beyond. She was recently recognized for her commitment to nursing and improving care in the community with the 2026 American Nurses Association Massachusetts Community Service Award. In addition to her work with the Accelerator, Claude cares for patients aged 65 and older through Mass General’s Geriatric Inpatient Fracture Trauma Service, evaluating older adults who have experienced traumatic fractures and preparing them for surgery. Across both roles, she brings a career-long commitment to caring for older adults and doing work she finds meaningful.
Q&A
What drew you to the West Health Accelerator?
Kimberly Claude: When I think about my career, my accomplishments have all been for my family. Now, I want to focus on doing the work that I love and that makes me happy. To me, a title doesn’t mean much if you’re not doing what you love.
When I found out about this opportunity, I thought it would be a way for me to really highlight all the work that I’ve done over the years and do what I love, and that’s taking care of older adults. I looked at the website and read about West Health, and said to myself, “I need to be a part of this.” I liked that they focused on the 4Ms — mobility, mentation, what matters most, and medication — and embedded these geriatric best practices into the electronic health record. I think clinicians can easily miss some of these considerations, especially if they don’t specialize in geriatrics, so the Accelerator’s approach creates an automatic safeguard to help ensure that older adults receive the best possible care.
Where did your passion for caring for older adults begin?
KC: I worked in geriatrics at Boston University for eight years, and I did home care and nursing-home work. When I left BU, they gave me a picture of an actual patient’s hand with all their medications in it. You can see the frailty in the hand. I bring that picture with me everywhere to remind me of all the medications that older adults can be taking at one time and how we’re striving for fewer medications. We want patients to be as independent as they can and take care of themselves without having to worry about all these medications that probably are not beneficial. After BU, I worked at the Veteran’s Affairs for about 10 years to honor my late father. He was a Marine, and I wanted to give the best care to veterans.
What has it been like to become part of the Accelerator team?
KC: Honestly, it doesn’t feel like work. It’s such a good feeling. I started the week of the Champions retreat, so on day three I was already facilitating and meeting everyone on the team. It’s a happy group. In those first few days, they said to me, “Kim, don’t worry alone.” That almost made me want to cry because you always want to do a good job, but of course you do have worries. That made me feel like they are people of their word and that we are all in this together.
What is your hope for the future of the Accelerator?
KC: You always want your work to be bigger than yourself, and I think this is that opportunity. I would like to see the work that we are doing now become a national footprint. I feel like everything I have learned along the way will help me make a meaningful impact and help catapult the work of the Accelerator into something greater. My heart is in it.