While their Tempe campus has hosted their business,
engineering, and design schools for a long time, the health-centered colleges are
based in the downtown Phoenix and West campuses. Combining the resources and
strengths from these schools and ASU’s office of Entrepreneurship and
Innovation creates opportunities for nursing and health students pursuing their
bachelors and masters degrees, both in the classroom and in the workplace.
From Classroom to Competition to Career
Students are already showing major successes from the program, as shared by the Phoenix Business Journal. Ramona Ramadas, who has been pursuing her Masters in Healthcare Innovation through ASU’s online courses, recently competed in the Nurse-Pitch competition at the 2019 Healthcare and Management Systems Society conference and placed third. Her startup, New Trails Navigators, is an AI-driven platform designed to train incarcerated inmates, prepping to release and re-enter the workforce, to begin a career in healthcare. The mentoring and networking Ms. Ramada has been able to gain through the HEALab has helped her win three additional competitions and awards, including the Pakis Social Entrepreneurship Challenge and the Alliance for the American Dream.
In addition to being a resource for Arizona State students, the HEALab has been used by students at other schools. Back in February, students from Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine visited the lab and other school campuses and centers, through a week long Entrepreneurship and Innovation selective with Dr. Rick Hall, CONHI’s Senior Director of Health Innovation. These students used applied human-centered design techniques and lean startup business tools to develop application ideas.
The HEALab offers monthly guest speakers and one-on-one mentoring to all ASU community members, faculty, and students, including those from different campuses, and those taking online coursework. For more information about the HEALab, click here.
Correction, March 27, 2019: We initially reported that New Trails Navigators works with newly incarcerated inmates, instead of inmates who are preparing to release and re-enter the workforce. We have edited the article to reflect this correction.
Carrington graduated from the UA College of Nursing in 2008 where she focused on informatics and healthcare technology. She is currently leading a research team on improving communication between nurses to increase patient safety, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.
Shea is a nurse and scientist whose research focuses on telehealthcare in patient’s homes. She has 25 years of nursing experience and has researched the topic of telehealthcare for a decade, as well as traveled to Central America to apply and assess telehealth opportunities.
These nursing scholars are looking forward to not only providing expertise in their respective specialties, but also to using this as a chance to learn how other cultures infuse technology into their healthcare practices.
To learn more about Jane Carrington and Kimberly Shea, two nursing scholars from the University of Arizona who have been accepted to the Fulbright Specialist Program, allowing them to take their work global, visit here.
Children are in and out of emergency rooms every day for accidents and illnesses, but Carson is concerned with those who come in with abuse-related injuries. The US has no standardized screening process to identify the early signs of child abuse in emergency departments across the country, which results in many cases of physical child abuse going unnoticed.
Carson has been dedicated to pediatrics since she graduated from nursing school and after learning the statistics of missed child abuse cases in emergency rooms, Carson sought to improve them.
She tells wildcat.arizona.edu, “I always dreamed about being a mom, but I wasn’t blessed with children. When I see children—who I think are a gift—that are experiencing abuse, it just pulls at my heartstrings like nothing else.”
Carson has spent the last few years researching and developing an evidence-based screening program to catch signs of child abuse early on. In November she was named Pediatric Nurse Practitioner of the Year by the Arizona chapter of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners in honor of her work.
According to The Daily Wildcat, 11 to 64 percent of child abuse cases go undetected by healthcare providers — 35 to 50 percent of children in missed cases are at risk for future injuries from abuse, and 10 to 30 percent will die from of those injuries. There are protocols in place to treat child abuse once it’s been identified, but Carson’s concern is with the cases of missed abuse, which she hopes to capture more often by implementing proper screening.
To learn more about Sheri Carson, the University of Arizona clinical nursing instructor who developed a new child abuse screening program to help emergency room healthcare providers identify the signs of child abuse early on, visit here.
Sheri Carson, a University of Arizona College of Nursing clinical instructor, was named Arizona Pediatric Nurse Practitioner of the Year last month by the Arizona National Association of Nurse Practitioners for her work in the area of children’s health advocacy.
Carson was nominated for the award by Mary O’Connell, senior lecturer in the College or Nursing, for her research aimed at accurately identifying early signs of child abuse by improving the screening process in hospital emergency departments.
According to Tucson.com, studies show that US healthcare providers miss 11 percent to 64 percent of cases in emergency departments. If the abuse isn’t caught early, 30 to 50 percent of those children are at risk for subsequent abuse and up to 30 percent of those children will die from abuse-related injuries. To improve those statistics, Carson developed an evidence-based screening program and tested it at a local hospital.
Carson tells Tucson.com, “I developed it to take healthcare providers from the point when the child arrives in the emergency department and walk them through what to do at each step depending on the outcome of the screening results.”
She found that her methods produced an improvement in knowledge and awareness in recognizing signs, symptoms, and risk factors of abuse. Carson hopes that the award will bring attention to her program so it can be rolled out statewide, especially in hospitals that don’t specialize in child care, but ultimately, she wants nationwide improvement in screening.
To learn more about Sheri Carson, a University of Arizona College of Nursing clinical instructor who was named Arizona Pediatric Nurse Practitioner of the Year last month by the Arizona National Association of Nurse Practitioners for her work in the area of children’s health advocacy, visit here.
Carolyn McCormies, EAC director of nursing and division chair for Nursing and Allied Health, tells EACourier.com, “Our students have been the most important focus in our program. This designation underscores our faculty’s commitment to exceptional outcomes in socializing students, professional involvement, and lifelong learning and creativity. We are humbled to be recognized by our peers alongside such prestigious programs throughout the nation.”
EAC shares this distinction with fifteen other nursing programs across the country, and will be formally recognized at an annual convocation. The National League for Nursing invites nursing schools to apply for the Center of Excellence in Nursing Education designation on an annual basis. Applicants are rated on their ability to demonstrate sustained excellence in faculty development, nursing education research, and student learning and professional development.
EAC’s Nursing Program is honored by the prestigious designation and its affirmation of the excellence of its faculty and students. To learn more about Eastern Arizona College’s Nursing Program being named a Center of Excellence in Nursing Education, visit here.
Daniel Crawford, associate director of the DNP program and clinical assistant professor, believes the pediatric nursing program will prepare advanced practice nurses in the acute-care setting. He tells ASUNow.ASU.edu, “Those settings may include pediatric emergency rooms, pediatric intensive-care units, pediatric inpatient-care units and some pediatric specialties.”
Students who join the program can expect a hybrid format that requires in-person classes and online classes. The courses will focus on the development of a framework for developmentally supportive, family-centered, culturally appropriate advanced-practice nursing for infants and children with unstable chronic, complex acute, and life-threatening illnesses.
ASU’s Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program is one of few in the country and will help prepare advanced practice nurses to treat a vulnerable population in need of specialized care. To learn more about ASU’s new pediatric nursing program, visit here.
