ASU News - Nursing + Nursing

Online program aims to boost stroke treatment

rolbrysh — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:19:10 -0600

A collaborative online neurovascular advanced practice nurse (APN) post-graduate fellowship program by the ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation with the University of Alabama-Birmingham’s (UAB) School of Nursing and Comprehensive Stroke Center is off to a fast start. The continuing education program is intended to prepare more APNs to help improve acute stroke treatment.
Stroke is the No. 1 cause of adult disability in the United States.

The Health Resources and Services Administration funds NET SMART (Advanced Practice Nurse Education & Training in Stroke Management & Acute Reperfusion Therapies), a three-year continuing education project to prepare APNs to treat stroke victims.

The NET SMART continuing education program started in January with the first 25 APN fellows enrolled within 45 days of program announcement, says Anne Wojner-Alexandrov, the principal investigator and director of the project. The program is currently enrolling the next cohort.

NET SMART provides Internet-based continuing education, supported by an on-site, two-week clinical preceptorship and validation period at the UAB Hospital. The UAB clinical experience carrys one of the highest rates for provision of intravenous thrombolysis and intra-arterial rescue therapies, and it provides APN fellows with a high-volume, fast-paced environment and a complex neurovascular patient population typical of the U.S. “stroke belt.”

Stroke is the leading cause of permanent disability in adults and the third-leading cause of death in the United States, affecting more than 700,000 Americans each year, while another estimated 300,000 are diagnosed with transient ischemic attack (TIA), a high-risk stroke precursor in emergency situations.

“NET SMART is unique because it combines the strengths of two leading nursing programs with a medical school’s department of neurology that is one of the strongest in the nation,” says Bernadette Melnyk, dean of ASU’s College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation. “NET SMART also provides participants with on-site validation in the heart of the nation’s ‘stroke belt,’ where there are more cases of stroke and stroke deaths per year than anywhere else in the United States.”

The case for need

Establishment of stoke centers in more than 400 hospitals across the country has made it difficult to obtain expert practitioner staffing. In the United States, there are fewer than 200 fellowship-trained stroke neurologists, and just 10,461 board certified neurologists. To combat personnel shortages, several hospitals and physicians have begun to turn to APNs who can be positioned on the front line of acute stroke care, supported by neurologist phone, telemedicine or teleradiology consultation.

“We believe that NET SMART will be a valuable adjunct to learning that will recruit many advanced practice nurses into key acute stroke leadership roles,” says Ray Watts, chairman of neurology at UAB, in a letter of support for the collaborative project. “Our ongoing commitment to APNs places us in a unique position to offer this program, and it is our desire to see APN value and visibility increase significantly within the health care community and lay public as a result of our efforts.”

Target audience and applicant pool

The NET SMART acute stroke fellowship continuing education program targets clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners interested in vascular nursing, as well as masters-prepared stroke program coordinators. The program is designed to prepare participants for clinical leadership roles in the emergency evaluation and treatment of high-risk acute stroke patients. Expertise in the neurosciences is not a requirement for participation for the program.

Enrollees in NET SMART complete Internet-based learning modules, complemented by clinical learning activities and post-tests. Once the modules are completed, participants attend an 80-hour, on-site clinical preceptorship and validation session at the UAB Comprehensive Stroke Center.

Upon satisfactory completion of the program, participants receive a NET SMART acute stroke fellowship certificate from the ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation.

“The feedback we’ve received on the program from our current fellows has been incredibly positive,” Alexandrov says. “Our fellows have rapidly expanded their knowledge and skills, far beyond that of most APNs providing care to acute stroke patients. It is exciting and rewarding to work with these remarkable new nursing leaders, and I am optimistic that each will make significant contributions that dramatically improve the care of our nation’s acute stroke patients in the coming years.”

For more information, call (480) 727-6262 or visit the Web site www.netsmart-stroke.com.

Nursing college earns 2 federal grants

rolbrysh — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:32:09 -0600

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has awarded two three-year grants totaling $2.1 million to the ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation. The grants bring the college’s funding total from HRSA to $3.7 million since July 2007.

HRSA, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for the uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable.

In the first grant award, the ASU nursing college received funding from HRSA for “KySS Fellowship for NPs in Underserved U.S.: Improving Child & Teen Mental Health.” The college’s dean, Bernadette Melnyk, is the principal investigator and project director, and Michael Rice and Ann Guthery are co-project directors.

The grant funds the development and implementation of a KySS (Keep your children/yourself Safe and Secure) fellowship program aimed at preparing primary care pediatric and family nurse practitioners, as well as physicians and allied health professionals, to screen for, identify and deliver early evidence-based interventions for children and adolescents experiencing common mental health problems.

The fellowship program, the first of its kind in the United States, is a collaborative effort between the ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation and the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners’ (NAPNAP) KySS program, a national initiative that promotes the mental health of children and teens.

The initiative will enhance advanced practice nurses’ knowledge and skills to identify and implement early evidence-based interventions with culturally diverse high-risk children and teens that have common mental health problems in rural and urban settings. The KySS program will provide an Web-based fellowship program that integrates clinical practice experiences in clinical practice settings to provide opportunities for health care providers to put into practice the content from the online educational modules.

One out of every four children and adolescents (about 15 million) in the United States has a mental health problem that interferes with functioning at home or at school. Just 20 percent to 25 percent of these children receive treatment, according to the American Psychological Association. Primary care providers are in a unique position to identify and manage common behavioral and mental health problems among children and teens, since about 75 percent of children with mental health disorders are seen in primary care settings.

Significant health disparities exist in the receipt of mental health services, with a disproportionate number of Hispanic and African-American children affected. A nationwide shortage of 30,000 child psychiatrists contributes to the severe gap in child and adolescent mental health services. In Arizona, the psychiatric physician-to-population ratio is less than the national average, with 134 child psychiatrists practicing in the state in 2004. One-third of the counties in Arizona have no child psychiatrists.

The KySS fellowship program is a continuing education program designed to prepare nurse practitioners, physicians and other health care professionals to identify and implement early evidence-based interventions for children and adolescents with common mental health problems. The KySS fellowship program consists of 20 Web-based modules designed to be completed at the participant’s own pace and will be complemented by clinical learning activities and post-tests. Upon completion of the program, participants will receive a KySS fellowship certificate of completion from the College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation and the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners.

The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners is the only national organization dedicated to improving the quality of health care for infants, children and adolescents and to advancing the pediatric nurse practitioner’s role in providing that care. The association serves almost 7,000 members nationwide.

The second HRSA grant awarded to the College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation is titled “Leveraging Educational Technology for Evidence-Based Practice.” Its goal is to improve the quality and delivery of nursing education through expanding use of educational technology for pre-licensure students. Debra Hagler is the principal investigator and project director, and Beatrice Kastenbaum and Ruth Brooks are co-investigators.

The Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine has set a goal for 90 percent of clinical decisions to be supported by the best available evidence by 2020.

This innovative approach expands use of educational technology to promote student learning through dedicated development of faculty expertise, creation of effective instructional design, mentorship for clinical preceptors and collaboration with interdisciplinary partners.

Efforts to address the nursing shortage by increasing student enrollment have led to challenges in contracting enough appropriate clinical learning sites, which affects clinical practice opportunities. The project goal is to employ educational technology simulation for focused learning in conjunction with planned clinical experiences to expand clinical experiences for students while providing culturally responsive, evidence-based clinical decision-making.

Roots of nursing education stretches back over 5 decades

jnewberg — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:01:40 -0600

A new era in education began at ASU when the College of Nursing was founded half a century ago. In that time, the college has had five deans, each of whom made unique contributions to what the college is today.

Loretta Bardewyck, who passed away last year, served as the founding dean of the nursing program in 1957, a year before ASU itself became a university. She worked with a budget of about $22,000 that first year. Her salary was $9,000 while a beginning instructor made about $4,000 per year.

Retired faculty member Ellamae Branstetter was there from the beginning and remembers Bardewyck fondly.

“We didn’t have a lot of students, but we had enough to keep us busy,” Branstetter says.

Although the college was small at that time, Branstetter enjoyed the friendly atmosphere. Much of that feeling of cohesiveness was due to Bardewyck’s leadership.

“Students had confidence in Loretta,” Branstetter says. “People liked her.”

Students were eager to learn nursing skills, and they traveled to places such as Good Samaritan Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital for clinical experience.

The nursing program grew through the years, and a master’s degree program that Branstetter developed came to fruition during her tenure. Native Americans also gained access to health care after Branstetter worked to secure a grant in 1977 that established an academic nursing center in Scottsdale – the first of its kind at a university in the country. There now are five nursing centers in the Valley.

Clinical associate professor Barbara Fargotstein started at ASU as a nursing student who graduated in 1969, and she worked with all five deans. As a student, Fargotstein remembers Bardewyck as instrumental in establishing the nursing program as a separate school from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

After Bardewyck, Juanita Murphy joined the college as dean from 1971 to 1983. She focused on scholarship and research.

“She really set the stage for faculty to get their doctorates, conduct more research and gain additional funding,” Fargotstein says.

Janelle Kruger, dean from 1984 to 1992, promoted diversity by bringing minority students into nursing. The American Indian Students United in Nursing program began at ASU in 1990. Today, the College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation has 29.6 percent minority enrollment, a testimony of Krueger’s foresight.

Krueger was adept at reaching out to many different community advocates and partners.

“She was very effective at building partnerships,” says Mary Killeen, who started at ASU as a nursing student in 1975 and eventually went on to become a faculty member and associate dean for academic affairs.

Barbara Durand expanded the bachelor’s degree program and was able to bring the doctorate of nursing degree program to fruition during her years as dean from 1992 to 2004. The college also made U.S. News and World Report rankings during Durand’s tenure for the first time, with a ranking of No. 40 out of 365 master’s degree programs in the country. Rankings in later years would improve to the mid-30s.

Durand also worked to take nurses to the next level through a registered nurse to bachelor’s degree in nursing program, and she also strengthened the nurse practitioner programs.

Technological needs also were addressed with the addition of more computers and simulated patients – “manikins” with heart sounds, blood pressure, circulation and many other body vital signs. Simulation gives students the chance to prepare and receive the most benefit from clinical experiences, says Jean Stengel, retired director of student services, who managed the simulation center as one of her many duties.

Student experiences are among the most treasured remembrances of years past at the nursing college. Participating in the learning process and celebrating “Aha!” moments with students when a concept or practice finally makes sense – and watching as critical thinking skills blossom – are just a few memories that Fargotstein finds inspiring.

Now that the college is located at the Downtown Phoenix campus, it continues to grow and change under the leadership of its current dean, Bernadette Melnyk. Enrollment is double what it was five years ago with more than 1,840 students.

Melnyk has expanded nursing educational programs, increased research grants and developed new centers of excellence that focus on research areas such as evidenced-based practice, improving health outcomes for children, teens and families, conducting clinical trials to bring new health care products to market, and increasing geriatric nursing faculty. She also championed changing the name of the college to the College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation to reflect its emphasis on innovation and interdisciplinary health care.

Melnyk joined two of the other nursing deans and community leaders to celebrate the college’s 50th anniversary gala April 25 at the Arizona Biltmore.

College builds for future of nursing education

jnewberg — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:21:55 -0600

ASU’s College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation began 50 years ago in the basement of Matthews Library with three faculty members and six students.

“We have come a very long way since then,” says Bernadette Melnyk, dean of the College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation.

The college celebrated its planned expansion into its second building on the Downtown Phoenix campus by breaking ground on April 1 for a five-story, 84,000 square foot facility at Third and Fillmore streets.

The new building will include a 200-seat auditorium, student facilities and faculty office and research space. Silver LEED certification will be sought from the United States Green Building Council when construction is complete in fall of 2009.

As the largest nursing college in the country with nearly 2,000 students, the College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation continues to create innovations in nursing through programs that focus on evidence-based practice to reduce medical errors, new centers such as the Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence and degrees such as the Master of Healthcare Innovation, Melnyk says.

“We are setting a new standard for colleges across the country,” she adds.

The groundbreaking was celebrated as a historic conversion of events that were brought about by the citizens of Arizona – Arizona State University was created 50 years ago by a public vote. Almost half a century later, the people of Phoenix approved the creation of the Downtown Phoenix campus by approving a $223 million bond slated to create the campus.

Crow praised nurses who are the backbone of the healthcare industry, the women and men who provide care 24 hours a day.

“Nursing is at the end of the day, the core profession in healthcare,” Crow says.

Arizona Board of Regents member Ernest Calderon lauded nurses throughout history who selflessly gave of themselves for the good of others.

He told the audience that many in power today have forgotten to care for the needy regardless of their plight or origin.

“Today we not only shovel the Earth, but we also plant the seeds of hope,” Calderon says.

Building the new nursing building will benefit the economy by creating temporary jobs for construction workers and permanent employment in the city, says Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

“This is about economic development,” Gordon says.

Graduate student Dan Weberg, who will be in the first class to graduate in the new Master of Healthcare Innovation program, talked about the future of the college and its groundbreaking programs in areas such as the simulation program where students gain hands-on experience.

“We are truly pioneering the future,” Weberg says. “We are the ones who will change the world.”

Groundbreaking ushers in new era for ASU nursing

jnewberg — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:32:00 -0600

The ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation will break ground April 1 for its second building at the Downtown Phoenix campus, the same year the college is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

From its humble beginnings in the basement of Matthews Library in Tempe half a century ago, the college has expanded into state-of-the-art facilities in downtown Phoenix that encompass all of today’s modern nursing student needs. The College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation was one of three pioneering colleges to move to the city’s core when the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus was established in 2006.

Now the college is ushering in a new era of helping to meet the nation’s nursing shortage with the groundbreaking of their second building downtown. Arizona has 681 registered nurses per 100,000 people, well below the national average of 825 RNs per 100,000 people, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Coupled with an expanding and aging population, the need for nurses in the state and country will only grow more acute.

The new five-story, 84,000 square-foot facility will provide five new classrooms for nursing students. Located at the intersection of Third and Fillmore streets in Phoenix, the modern, glass-and-copper structure includes five classrooms, a 200-seat seminar space, student facilities and faculty office and research space. The building will include several sustainable elements and Silver LEED certification will be sought from the United States Green Building Council once construction is complete.

Public spaces incorporated throughout the design create green areas, such as gardens at Fillmore and Third streets, and a shaded plaza between the new and existing building. The main lobby reaches two stories high and is overlooked by a student lounge and conference space.

Outdoor balconies on the south and west sides create comfortable outdoor environments for students, staff and faculty.

The building skin is designed to maximize daylight inside while providing protection from the sun. Shading devices block direct sun from windows on the south, east and west façades, while the north façade is fully glazed to allow maximum penetration of daylight into office and research space.

The groundbreaking ceremony at 8:30 a.m., April 1, will feature ASU President Michael Crow, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, the College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation’s dean, Bernadette Melnyk, and nursing graduate student Dan Weberg. The ceremony takes place on the college’s lawn downtown just north of the existing nursing building at 500 N. Third Street in Phoenix. For more information, call (480) 965-2116.

The College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation will initially occupy the first three floors in the building. The fourth and fifth floors will be occupied by non-nursing ASU units and Phoenix offices.

Phoenix and ASU teamed up to build the campus and the new nursing building as part of a $223 million Phoenix bond that passed in 2006.
Completion of the college’s newest facility is scheduled for fall of 2009.

Program aims to cure health care need

rolbrysh — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:26:46 -0700

Behavioral and mental health disorders have surpassed physical health problems as the leading causes of extremely chronic illness and death in children and teens. But less than 25 percent of the 15 million affected children and youth receive any treatment because of the severe shortage of child psychiatrists and other mental health care providers, including child-family psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioners (CFP/MHNPs), according to the American Psychological Association (APA).

The ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation has launched an innovative educational program to help meet this critical health care need.

The Healthcare Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has funded a nearly $1 million, three-year project at the ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation to establish the 16th family psychiatric nurse practitioner program in the nation, consisting of three online educational options, says Bernadette Melnyk, dean of the ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation, who is the project director.

According to American Association of College of Nursing data, child family psychiatric nurse practitioners comprise the smallest group of nationally certified psychiatric mental health advanced practice nurses in the United States, with just 487 in comparison to the other psychiatric advanced practice nursing specialties, including adult psychiatric clinical nurse specialists (CNS), 7,023; child psychiatric CNS (990), and adult psychiatric NP (1,501). Child psychiatric clinical nurse specialists and family psychiatric nurse practitioners comprise 14 percent of all nationally certified psychiatric nurse practitioners. In Arizona, there are 2,624 active NPs, of which 165, or 6 percent, are psychiatric NPs.

Because of the inadequate numbers of child mental health providers, pediatric primary care providers (PCPs), such as pediatric nurse practitioners and pediatricians, are having to assess and manage common behavioral and mental health disorders in children and teens. PCPs typically report inadequate knowledge and skills in these areas, which creates an urgent need to prepare more CFP/MHNPs, PNPs and family nurse practitioners (FNPs) with advanced skills so they can be more effective in screening for and implementing early evidence-based interventions for youth with common mental health disorders.

Needs of children and teens in Arizona

Arizona is experiencing tremendous growth, including children age 19 and younger. Its Hispanic population is one of the largest in the nation, which presents multiple challenges for the health care infrastructure. The psychiatric physician-to-population ratio in Arizona is 12 child psychiatrists per 100,000 members of the population, compared to the U.S. ratio of 16.5 per 100,000. In 2004, there were 134 child psychiatrists practicing in Arizona. Seventy-six percent of Arizona child psychiatrists practice in its two largest counties, creating a disparity of care in rural areas. Five of 15 counties have no child psychiatrists. Substantial health disparities also exist in the receipt of mental health services, with a disproportionate number of Hispanic and African-American children affected.

ASU nursing answers need

To address the gap in mental health services for children and teens, the ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation has established three new enhanced online educational paths. The three online offerings include:

• A 15-credit child and adolescent mental health intervention graduate and post-master’s degree certificate.

• A 44-credit post-master’s degree to Doctor of Nursing Practice CFP/MHNP program (fall 2009 admission).

• An 84-credit post-bachelor’s degree to Doctor of Nursing Practice as a Child-Family Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.

“The first educational option, the graduate certificate, is designed to attract an interdisciplinary pool of health care professionals, including PNPs, FNPs, pediatricians and other related practitioners, who desire enhanced mental health assessment and intervention skills for use in their current primary care practices,” says Michael Rice, an associate professor of nursing and the psychiatric nurse practitioner program coordinator.

The last two programs will prepare CFP/MHNP candidates for national certification as family psychiatric nurse practitioners. The programs will be offered starting this fall. The post-master’s program is one of the advanced practice specialty tracks in the college’s new doctor of nursing practice program.

Besides Rice, project co-directors include Ann Guthery, a clinical assistant professor of nursing, and Maureen Campesino, an assistant professor of nursing.

Primary care: A natural point of contact

In 2006, the APA released a report that acknowledged the pressing need for further mental health training of health care professionals in mental health screening and intervention. Among the recommendations from its working group on psychotropic medications for children and adolescents were calls for continuing education for child and adolescent practitioners, as well as training for faculty in evidence-based strategies in the treatment and management of childhood disorders.

Extensive findings from research emphasize that evidence-based and early intervention services are essential to reduce the national and global epidemic of psychiatric disorders. Studies also have indicated that the provision of evidenced-based treatments is associated with better outcomes, including a decrease in symptoms and disabilities and improvement in school performance.

“Primary care settings represent a significant and natural point of contact for children and their families,” Melnyk says. “As such, pediatric primary care providers (PCPs) are in a unique position to identify and manage common mental health problems and disorders in children and adolescents, as approximately 75 percent of children with mental health disorders are seen in primary care settings. PCPs report inadequate knowledge of screening and early interventions for these problems, along with a strong desire to gain these skills, as they are often faced with treating children with these disorders as a result of a serious gap in mental health services in the current health care system.”

The ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation plans to conduct a national symposium on child and adolescent mental health in Phoenix this year. The symposium will focus on providing continuing education that enhances the mental health screening and early intervention practices of primary care nurse practitioners and interdisciplinary health care providers who care for children, adolescents and families.

Nursing, auto racing help sick kids

rolbrysh — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:26:24 -0600

Nursing and auto racing are not words used together very often. However, the two professional occupations have formed a partnership to benefit a common cause: seriously ill children.

NASCAR NEXTEL Cup series driver Kyle Petty and Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) have joined the ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation to raise funds for the Victory Junction Gang Camp and the college. The partners will sponsor Kyle Petty’s Victory Invitational Golf Tournament in the Phoenix area Feb. 27-28.

By joining forces, both organizations can use their combined strength to build a better tomorrow for children stricken with serious illness.

Proceeds from the tournament and surrounding events will help support ongoing efforts to improve the quality of life for children diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses, provide support for their families and contribute to the ongoing training for the professionals who treat them.

Founded in 2004, the Victory Junction Gang Camp enriches the lives of children with chronic medical conditions or serious illnesses by providing life-changing camping experiences that are exciting, fun and empowering in a safe and medically sound environment. The camp was founded by Kyle and Pattie Petty in honor of their son, Adam, on 72 acres of land in North Carolina that was donated by Richard and Lynda Petty. More information on the camp can be found online at www.victoryjunction.org.

“The Victory Junction Gang Camp looks to do three or four major events each year, and this will be one of them,” Kyle Petty says. “The help of the people at Phoenix International Raceway and the Arizona State University College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation is going to really accelerate this tournament into a premier charitable event for the camp. I can’t thank them enough for what they have done to this point.”

For more information about Kyle Petty’s Victory Invitational Celebrity Golf Tournament, please contact Kristie Maggs of Phoenix International Raceway at (623) 463-5400 or kmaggs@phoenixinternationalraceway.com. Interested sponsors can reach Jon Sata at the same phone number or at jsata@phoenixinternationalraceway.com.

ASU advances elderly health care

rolbrysh — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:34:03 -0600

The ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation has been awarded a $1 million, five-year grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation of New York to fund a geriatric nursing center to recruit and retain geriatric nursing educators in the Southwest.

The announcement was made by Bernadette Melnyk, the college’s dean.

Arizona and the nation face a critical shortage of nurses ready and prepared to care for an elderly population estimated to double to 70 million by 2030.

The College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation also announced matching funds pledged by several local organizations. The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust pledged $500,000 to support two new geriatric nursing faculty positions, and Sun Health Boswell Memorial Hospital pledged $400,000 for two new graduate fellowships in geriatric nursing.

In addition, the Arizona Health Care Association pledged $5,000 for scholarships, while Evercare pledged $5,000 in initial funding.

The grant establishes the Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence (CGNE) at the ASU nursing college and the Southwest Consortium for Geriatric Nursing Education under the direction of Colleen Keller, a professor of nursing. Nelma Shearer, an associate professor of nursing, will serve as co-director. Keller and Shearer have conducted extensive research to maintain good health among older adults.

“Nurses are on the front lines of caring for our parents, grandparents and ourselves as we age and face the diseases and frailty that come with getting older,” says Corinne Rieder, executive director of the John A. Hartford Foundation. “It is critical that we improve and increase the number of nurses trained in geriatric best practices.”

Since 1996, she notes, the trustees of the John A. Hartford Foundation have invested more than $67 million in nursing initiatives to improve the care of older adults.

Colleges of nursing at Pennsylvania State University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Utah received similar grants.

The Hartford Foundation funding is part of a major expansion that brings the total of geriatric centers to nine. The four new centers join the five original centers at the Universities of Arkansas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, the University of California-San Francisco, and the Oregon Health and Science University.

With its growing and aging population, Arizona has a critical need for nurse educators to prepare the next generation of geriatric nurse practitioners. Residents of the state older than 65 comprise 13 percent of the population, and this percentage is projected to increase to 22 percent by 2030. There are only 57 geriatric nurse practitioners out of 2,653 in Arizona, where one of every two deaths occurs before the average U.S. life expectancy.

In her letter of support, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona says, “Educating more geriatric nursing faculty is critical to the health and well-being of our diverse, elderly Arizonans, whose population over 85 years of age will increase by 102 percent within the next 15 years.”

The ASU CGNE also plans to place special emphasis on health disparities among Arizona’s large Hispanic and Native American populations, Melnyk says. The average ages at death for Native Americans and Hispanics in Arizona are 55 and 57, respectively.

Keller says the objectives of the ASU geriatric nursing center include:

• Educating qualified doctoral and post-doctoral students with a geriatric focus and commitment to academic careers over the five-year project period.
• Increasing the number of ethnically diverse, doctorally prepared geriatric nursing faculty.
• Developing and implementing geriatric nursing-focused doctoral coursework with two graduate interdisciplinary geriatric nursing courses that provide substantive theory-based content.

Seven colleges of nursing have joined ASU to form the Southwest Consortium for Geriatric Nursing Education as a unique contribution to the initiative. Consortium members include the three Arizona state university colleges of nursing – ASU, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University – and colleges of nursing in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and southwestern Texas. The members will provide nationally recognized geriatric faculty to mentor doctoral and post-doctoral students across institutions in the program.

The consortium also will conduct monthly seminars, a visiting scholar series, and consultations on grant applications for the on-site component of the primarily Web-based program.

Mottle to lead health care innovation center

rolbrysh — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:02:34 -0600

The College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation has launched an interdisciplinary initiative with the formation of the Center for Healthcare Innovation & Clinical Trials (CHI&CT) to help bring innovative health care products to market.

The center is in partnership with InnovationSpace, an ASU entrepreneurial joint venture with the College of Design, the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering, and the W. P. Carey School of Business and Arizona Technology Enterprises (AzTE).

The purpose of CHI&CT is to teach students how to develop products that create market value while serving real societal needs and minimizing impacts on the environment. The clinical trials initiative is funded by the Kauffman Foundation’s “University as Entrepreneur” program as part of a five-year grant to ASU.

Linda Mottle, a clinical associate professor at the college, has been named director of the center. She has more than 30 years experience in the health and clinical research fields as an administrative manager, nursing clinician and organizational leader, specializing in health program and clinical research development, in addition to intensive cardiac care.

“This innovative center will serve as the focal point among biotechnical organizations, health care institutions and clinical researchers,” says Bernadette Melnyk, the college’s dean and a Distinguished Foundation Professor in Nursing. “It will attract scientists and health care practitioners who have innovative ideas for products to improve health care, but who need assistance in actualizing their ideas through design, clinical trial testing and taking their product to market. Unique to this center is the clinical trials component, which will allow gathering of solid evidence to support product use for sustained solutions in health care institutions.”

The center also will have an educational component where interdisciplinary students can learn the process of translating innovative ideas into the design and testing of new health care products and approaches. Specifically, the CHI&CT has developed a new graduate certificate that has been submitted to the university for approval.

It is anticipated the 15-credit-hour graduate certificate for clinical research management will be approved to be offered in January. The center also will offer an interdisciplinary master’s degree in clinical trials management, and pre- and post-doctoral mentor programs for research scientists at a later date.

ASU entrepreneur initiative

“This initiative advances the ASU entrepreneur initiative by launching an innovative center, which to our knowledge, is the first of its kind in the country,” Mottle says. “It will create a national hub for clinicians, scientists, and collaborating health care institutions and community partners to advance health care through the creation of evidence-based innovative products and approaches that improve the health care system and create a cadre of interdisciplinary innovators, which the field urgently needs.”

The center already has conducted a low-risk clinical trial on a cardiographic impedance device approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Center looks at health care needs

One of the challenges in the medical technology industry is that most new technologies do not result in obvious gains in mortality or morbidity, so that it is important to demonstrate improvements in quality of life and economic advantages, Melnyk says. More health care providers and payers want to see evidence of effectiveness in community settings rather than just efficacy in the carefully controlled settings that characterize data gathering for purposes of regulatory approval. The College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation has the infrastructure in place to conduct these specific types of trials and product assessments in collaboration with its health care institutional partners.

The new center plans to work with interdisciplinary ASU scientists and community health care institutions and practitioners, biomedical and biotechnical professionals to deliver breakthrough medical inventions that can eliminate the potential for errors, improve the quality of health care delivery and save lives. Equally important, the next wave of medical technology innovation will address the cost effectiveness concerns that pervade government and society and will seek to meet the growing needs of an increasingly well-informed patient population that demands more effective, more efficient and less-invasive treatment options.

Health care networks and community biotechnical partners

The ASU nursing faculty and college’s new master’s degree in health care innovation program provide existing collaborations with numerous health care institutions and medical product developers and a long history of substantive research in health care process, evidenced-based practice, nursing process and clinical research. Current clinical research projects generally evaluate already developed and FDA-approved products.

The College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation operates five community-based health centers and an advanced student clinical simulation lab that provide an extensive internal network of clinical trial sites. The nurse-managed centers include the ASU Health Center on the Downtown Phoenix campus that provides services for 6,800 ASU students and employees, thus giving the college direct access to potential test subjects.

Mottle says the college plans to expand the types of clinical trials and clinical research opportunities with many of the more than 400 health care institutions in Arizona that are contracted clinical educational sites for nursing students and also provide additional external clinical research sites and cooperative efforts for clinical trial through extensive health care institutional and clinical research networks.

The College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation is ranked in the top 8 percent, or 32nd out of 396, of graduate colleges of nursing by U.S. News & World Report. Its pediatric nurse practitioner program was listed 13th in its peer group in the same survey rankings.

The college has an enrollment of more than 1,800 students and more than 7,600 graduates.

For information on the CHI&CT, visit the Web site http://nursing.asu.edu/chict or call (602) 496-0684.

Clinical partnerships transform face of medicine

cderra — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:33:57 -0600

In the four years since she first began the clinical partnerships program at Arizona State University, Kathy Matt has seen it grow at a furious pace and in unforeseen directions.

While there are many examples of the “power of partnerships,” a recent one for Matt, director of the Office of Clinical Partnerships, associate vice president for research administration and associate vice president for academic affairs, happened on a recent visit to the ASU labs of Jiping He.

The reason for Matt’s visit to the He lab was to discuss the clinical partnerships program with officials of the National Institutes of Health, who were there to learn more about the robotic arm He’s research team was developing.

He’s team, which He set up but was facilitated by the clinical partnerships program, includes basic and clinical scientists, electrical and mechanical engineers, and specialists in robotics design. Additional members of the research team included individuals from a collaborating company, Kinetic Muscles (a Tempe company that produces human rehabilitation devices), as well as physical therapists and physicians present from Banner Health.

“It really struck me,” Matt recalls, “just having this whole group interact. You could see how trying to design a robotic arm that would help a stroke patient involves so many levels and so many people coming at it from different approaches. It epitomized what we are trying to accomplish with clinical partnerships – these are use-inspired, interdisciplinary and translational research projects.”

There are many other examples of clinical partnerships at work, Matt adds, including a haptic lab at Banner Health to explore new ways to train surgeons, development of new rehabilitation tools for stroke patients, and new research into Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, diabetes and new interventions for depression and mental health diseases.

Seeds for growth

Begun in 2003 with its first clinical partner, the Mayo Clinic of Scottsdale, ASU’s program has grown to nine partners and involves hundreds of participants from researchers to faculty to students. The program, which is geared toward providing applied research support to local hospitals and health care facilities, has proven to be both popular and useful to all parties involved.

Matt says the Office of Clinical Partnerships is designed to support and promote the grassroots efforts of scientists and clinicians who want to work together on use-inspired research. For the clinical partners, like Mayo or Barrow Neurological Institute or Banner Health, the program provides research-based solutions to specific problems. The clinical partners have a specific research need, so they engage ASU to help.

ASU, on the other hand, has the research facilities and human ingenuity to tackle some of these highly focused, applied projects. For ASU researchers and faculty, it’s a chance to work on “real-world” problems, and for ASU students these projects provide an unmatched learning experience.

“Clinical partnerships are the epitome of use-inspired research,” says R.F. “Rick” Shangraw Jr., ASU’s vice president for research and economic affairs. “Through the program, we directly connect bioscience research at ASU with the real needs of the community.”

“Work with our clinical partners raises the probability that innovation and discovery will occur, and that these discoveries will translate in significant ways into applications that will change and improve the lives of people in our community, our state, even our country,” Shangraw adds.

The nine clinical partners of ASU – Mayo, Barrow Neurological Institute, Banner Health, Translational Genomics, Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center, Maricopa Integrated Health System, Sun Health Research Institute, Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Scottsdale Healthcare – have varying degrees of involvement with ASU in the program. Five have signed agreements that set an administrative framework for how the partnership will work. With that framework in place, the research projects take on their own directions, depending on need.

“When a clinical institution approaches us, ASU is almost limitless in what we can offer them,” Matt says. “Once the institutions are linked we can then link the individual researchers or research teams as best fits the specific challenge or research questions we are investigating. Each partner has specific priority areas – for Mayo, it’s cancer; for Barrow, it is neuroscience; for the VA it’s depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, metabolism, diabetes and cardiovascular disease; and for Maricopa Integrated Health, it is wound healing, diabetes, trauma and mental health,” she explains.

Mayo, the first partner, has the most comprehensive clinical partnership program with ASU. For example, ASU-Mayo have set up a joint nursing education program, a seed grant fund program to foster new innovative technologies at their earliest stages, the MAC5 program to translate cancer treatment discoveries into clinical advances, and a project with the law school that enables students to enroll in a joint Juris doctorate program at ASU and simultaneously earn M.D. and J.D. degrees.

Additional new ASU-Mayo projects in the works include matching senior bioengineering students with physicians in a clinical environment to help the students find real-life challenges to tackle in their senior capstone projects. ASU’s College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation, the College of Design and the Biodesign Institute are working together to develop new designs for equipment, such as IV poles and better beds that can be used at the bedside to help patients and health care workers. Teams of students and professionals will work together to outline the problems and design novel solutions drawing from a range of approaches and backgrounds.

In general, most clinical partnerships involve setting up collaborative research agreements, faculty appointments, shared graduate programs, shared research facilities and shared grants.

Matt says there are more than 120 joint appointees from the clinical partners to ASU as research and clinical faculty. There are 64 joint appointees of ASU faculty to the clinical partners, and she adds there are some 26 departments, 11 colleges and schools, and 96 centers involved in the program.

The clinical partnerships program also has played a role in the development and implementation of the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University that just opened its doors to its first class.

“You can see in the new curriculum that is being offered the blend that has been created by the partnerships of the two universities with the diverse clinical population,” Matt says. “It is exciting.”

Mutual benefits

A reason for the rapid growth of the clinical partnerships program is that all sides benefit from it.

For ASU faculty, the program is a chance to do research that will have an immediate and visible impact. Matt says this is important in mobilizing university research.

“The university creates this incredible knowledge base,” she says. “What you really need is a bridge that will take that knowledge and translate it into something that will change people’s lives right now.”

Like the work in Jiping He’s lab to develop rehabilitative devices for stroke victims. The work on specific problems and the collaboration across many disciplines helps make the research real.

“It makes a difference to those engineers in He’s lab when they interact with a patient for whom they are designing a rehabilitative device,” Matt says. “Here’s this patient and you begin to realize all of the challenges in how you make this device work for that patient.”

Student perspective

The benefit to students is that they, too, will get the chance to hone their problem-solving skills in these projects.

“Faculty from our clinical partners really want to be engaged with students,” Matt says. “They are excited to work with graduate and undergraduate students. Their faculty is anxious to teach. They want students to be involved in research, to foster those interdisciplinary projects.

“Our collaborations and partnerships encourage our faculty, our researchers, our students to reach beyond their comfort zone and link areas that have not been linked before,” Matt explains. “They challenge everyone to look at age-old questions in new ways to develop new solutions. They create an exciting environment for use-inspired research that is then approached from a team level, where the barriers of disciplines disappear.”

For more information on Clinical Partnerships, visit http://www.asu.edu/clinicalpartnerships/. For more information on Biomedicine at ASU, visit http://biomed.asu.edu.