The center is named after Bonnie Wesorick, a nurse, entrepreneur, and international healthcare visionary who led with compassion, integrity, and grit. It was back during Bonnie’s senior rotation of her nursing diploma program that she began to fully understand the importance of interprofessional collaboration to create the best places to give and receive care. From there, the seeds of the Clinical Practice Model (CPM) were planted. The CPM framework evolved from a commitment to provide the best care and culture within the context of an extremely complex healthcare system and with a deep understanding of the point of care, the place where the hands of those who give and receive care meet. To prevent fragmented, reactionary, and ultimately failed transformation interventions, the CPM was developed to guide the work needed to not create and sustain and healthy cultures that support point of care transformation.

In 1993, Bonnie started her own healthcare solutions business, The Clinical Practice Model Resource Center (CPMRC), to change the way care is given and received. Bonnie’s consultation and collaboration was sought so widely that she founded the Practice. Through the CPMRC Bonnie and her team consulted with and supported hundreds of healthcare leaders and professionals across the US and Canada. They formed a large international consortium of interprofessional healthcare professionals who actively offered insights into improvements needed to create the best places to give and receive care and gathered in-person for conferences and summits over a span of several decades.

At that time, electronic health records (EHR) were becoming widespread and eventually required. A key component of the CPM is assuring the clinicians have the tools and resources needed to deliver their scope of practice. Bonnie and her team were the first to develop and integrate clinical practice guidelines that delineate evidence-based care for specific diagnoses and clinical situations. In partnership with Eclipsys (now part of Allscripts), the interdisciplinary tools and resources became embedded into EHRs and utilized to guide multi-disciplinary teams across the country to deliver evidence-based care within a CPM framework.

In 2011, Elsevier acquired the CPM tools and resources and still today continues to offer CPM evidence-based care guides as key EHR resources for health system clients. Today, these tools are being used in seven different countries.

Bonnie’s strong connection to nursing education and practice eventually led her to Cynthia McCurren, Dean of and Professor at the Kirkhof College of Nursing. Together, their efforts lead to establishing a center dedicated to sustaining Bonnie’s legacy as a healthcare transformation expert. Generous donors came forward and the center opened its doors in 2012.

The Wesorick Center went quiet for a few years due to the complications and changes related to the COVID pandemic and leadership changes at the Kirkhof College of Nursing, but was relaunched in 2025 under the new leadership of Executive Director Leanne Mauriello. An expert in reimagining health care practices and systems, Mauriello's leadership and experience will allow for the Center to continue to flourish and grow, while staying true to it's center mission. 

Learn more about Leanne Mauriello

We are at a moment when health care leaders are navigating more challenges and change than ever before, from tighter budgets and staffing shortages to evolving payment models and increasing competition. At the same time, our healthcare system is constrained by a model that too often focuses on "sick care" rather than true health care. In this environment, those leading and delivering care need support more than ever. 

We are eager to revitalize the Wesorick Center and position it to become a global exemplar in forging academic and practice partnerships and supporting healthcare transformation through education, research, and innovation efforts. We strive for the Wesorick Center to equip and empower interdisciplinary healthcare learners and professionals to embody the perspectives, skills, and practice necessary for sustainable and patient-centric healthcare transformation and to uphold a positive and healthy environments in which to give and receive care.

We appreciate the generous gifts from donors which make what we do possible. The Center also benefits from continued support from many long-standing partners, including Bonnie Wesorick, who is still active contributing her expertise and time to the center.