Region 3 Director
Colleen Leners, DNP, FNP-BC, FAAN, FAANP
Dr. Colleen Leners is the American Association of Nurse Practitioners® (AANP) Region 3 Director. She has maintained an active family nurse practitioner (FNP) practice for more than 26 years and is currently the Chief Health Officer (CHO) at 1stCallHEALTH, providing veterans’ health care and telehealth primary care to the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia (DMV) region. She was formerly the director of policy for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), where she led advocacy efforts related to nursing education, research, and practice. Leners was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow in the office of Senator John Thune (R-SD) of the Senate Finance Committee, and she previously served in the United States Army Nurse Corps. Leners is on the board of Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research (FNINER), Case Western Reserve Alumni Board and the American Academy of Nursing Nominations Committee. Leners has many notable achievements, both civilian and military, and she is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and AANP. Leners was awarded the Bronze Star for her service overseas. She received her Doctor of Nursing Practice in Leadership from Case Western Reserve University, a Master of Science in Nursing FNP from the University of San Diego and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from California State University Dominguez Hills.