Dr. Barbara Braden received her nursing education at St. Joseph's School of Nursing in Omaha. She completed her BSN at Creighton, her masters at UC San Francisco and her doctorate at University of Texas, Austin. She was a long time faculty member at Creighton and served as Dean of University College at Creighton University. In 1987, she introduced a tool to assess the risk for skin breakdown in elderly and bedridden patients, to reduce the pain, suffering and expense associated with patient care. This assessment tool was known for incorporating diverse risk factors under broad concepts that combined ease of use with accuracy in prediction in all levels of healthcare facilities. This assessment tool is now known throughout the world as the Braden Scale. The Braden Scale has become a key measure of quality care in hospital and long-term care settings.

Dr. Braden has received world wide recognition for her work. As a doctoral student at the University of Texas, Austin, her dissertation won top honors among all dissertations, all graduates, all disciplines. The University of California San Francisco honored her as one of its all-time Top 100 alumni. The Wound Care and Ostomy Nursing Society named their keynote address the Braden Lecture. Cleveland Clinic, Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospitals, Duke University Hospitals, Hill-Rom Inc., and the countries of Canada, Japan and Singapore have sought her consultation. In 2001, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel in LeMans, France. Dr. Braden has received many more honors, including the Alumni Achievement Citation from Creigthon University.