On campus

Nursing program receives $827,000 federal grant

by David Maxwell

Xavier’s School of Nursing was recently awarded a 3-year,
$827,000 federal grant designed to provide training with
emerging technology that will improve collaboration across
professions. The grant will be used to support the infrastructure of a new interprofessional program including faculty development and purchase of telehealth equipment, as well as other project related activities. The newly established programs will focus on educating students to provide quality health care for a variety of situations and settings using technologically-supported interprofessional
collaboration. In addition, the grant will fund travel for faculty so other universities can learn from Xavier’s model.
Faculty from across Xavier’s College of Social Sciences,
Health and Education (CSSHE) will participate in a faculty development program to better teach students enrolled
in undergraduate and graduate-level programs related
to health care. “It is very exciting and cutting edge. It will help prepare the next generation of health professionals and educators to collaborate better and provide critical primary, secondary and tertiary prevention to all populations,” Director of the School of Nursing Susan Schmidt said.
The grant, issued by Health Resources and Services
Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will help Xavier work towards four goals.
These include integrating technology and interprofessional
education into the nursing curriculum, preparing CSSHE faculty to teach interprofessional education curricula
using enhanced technology and providing nursing and health-related students with requisite knowledge of interprofessional collaboration and technological skills.
The early training stages of this program are scheduled
to begin soon and progress quickly. “Next week faculty from
Nursing, Health Services Administration, Athletic Training, Mental Health Counseling, Social Work and Occupational Therapy are going to Texas to become certified as Interprofessional Trainers,” Schmidt said. By early 2013, students in remote locations will be taught the curriculum via teleconferencing technology that Xavier has used since 2008.