Research Newsletter 1. Recent Grant Awards 2. CUSON Grants Fund Pilot Projects 3. Recent Grant Submissions 4. Funding Opportunities 5. Awards and Accolades 6. CUSON Presence at AMIA Symposium 7. Electronic Grant Submission Update 8. NIH Announcements 9. Resources on the CUSON Shared Drive 10. Continuing Education and Training Courses 11. CIRAR / NYAS Co-Sponsored Symposium 12. Statistical Assistance 13. Research Bulletin Boards 14. Conferences and Continuing Education Opportunities 15. Publications 16. Updates to CUSON Research Web Site

Research Newsletter

1. Recent Grant Awards

During calendar year 2006, 11 new sponsored projects totaling over $4 million were awarded to School of Nursing faculty members. CUSON currently has a total of 26 active sponsored projects with a funding total of over $18 million.

Grants funded since the Spring 2006 newsletter include:

• Dr. Suzanne Bakken, Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Medical Informatics, is principal investigator of “Improving Use of CIS in the Underserved Through Mobile Access & Decision Support,” a 2-year exploratory research grant funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The overall goal of this project is to determine if integration of resources from NCI's Cancer Information Service (CIS) into an existing personal digital assistant (PDA)-based mobile decision support system for advanced practice nurses (MODS-APN) increases the use of tobacco-related CIS resources by APN students and the underserved populations for whom they provide care.


• Dr. Suzanne Bakken is also principal investigator of “APN Access to Electronic Resources for Safety & Quality (APN AcE),” a resource project funded by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The proposed project builds upon CUSON’s successful student clinical log project in which APN students document clinical encounters on personal digital assistants (PDAs) and access selected patient safety-related resources resident on their PDAs. The purpose of APN AcE is to provide tailored desktop and wireless access to web-based information resources related to patient safety and quality of care for APN students, faculty, and preceptors.


• Dr. Kristine Gebbie, Elizabeth Standish Gill Associate Professor of Nursing, is principal investigator of a supplemental grant from Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to expand her currently funded Bioterrorism Training and Curriculum Development Program to include a national training strategy. The goal of this supplement is to develop, pilot test and evaluate a competency-based continuing education program that can prepare all community-based healthcare providers throughout the nation to response to a large scale public health emergency or mass casualty incident. The project builds upon nearly a decade of experience in competency-based emergency preparedness partnerships with public health agencies, hospitals, clinicians, and educational partners.


• Dr. Kristine Gebbie is also principal investigator of a new HRSA training, “Strengthening Public Health Nursing in New York and New Jersey.” This year long project is designed to broaden the foundation skills and competencies of practicing public health nurses in New York and New Jersey, in partnership with the New York New Jersey Public Health Training Center (NYNJ PHTC). Activities include establishing a public health nursing exchange on the NYNJ PHTC web site, using the exchange to publicize existing NYNJ PHTC training programs, and expanding the NY and NJ public health nursing summits by adding competency-based continuing education on evidence-based public health nursing practice.


• Dr. Elaine Larson, Professor of Pharmaceutical and Therapeutic Nursing, is principal investigator of a cooperative agreement, “Stopping URIs and FLU in the Family: the Stuffy Trial,” a 2-year project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Stuffy Trial will compare the impact of two household-level interventions (an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with or without face masks) on six outcomes: incidence and types or strains of virologically confirmed influenza occurring in study households; rates of symptoms of influenza and viral URIs; basic reproduction number (R0), i.e. number of secondary cases generated by a single infected person in a fully susceptible household; antibiotic use practices for symptoms of influenza and other viral URIs; household member knowledge of prevention and treatment strategies for pandemic influenza and viral URIs; and rates of influenza vaccination among household members.


• Dr. Patricia Stone, Assistant Professor of Nursing, is principal investigator of a Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence Grant award, funded by Donald and Barbara Jones with co-funding by 1199. The project, entitled “Jonas Nursing Excellence Through Evidence-Based Practice Program,” aims to bring together the strengths of academic and clinical nursing to advance the quality of patient-centered healthcare by improving the nurse work environment and enhancing nursing excellence through evidence-based processes. Partnering with Beth Israel Hospital, scholar-clinical teams, consisting of 2 students, 1 clinical nurse leader and 1 staff nurse, will participate in a course assessing clinical evidence, attend monthly seminars, implement and evaluate evidence base projects in the clinical setting and disseminate the results. The ultimate goal of the program is to improve the hospital nurse work environment, attract and retain nurses, and improve the quality of patient care.


• Columbia University was awarded a prestigious U54 Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Research Resources. CTSA investigators in the School of Nursing include Dr. Nancy Reame (Director, Pilot & Collaborative Studies Resource), Dr. Suzanne Bakken (Community Engagement Resource and Biomedical Informatics Resource), and Dr. Elaine Larson (Development of Novel C/T Methodologies Resource)
  
• Dr. Bernadette Capili, Assistant Professor of Nursing, was selected for the Herbert and Florence Irving Fellowship, part of the new CTSA awarded to Columbia University. This 2-3 year fellowship provides junior faculty time to develop their research careers and the opportunity to meet and collaborate with senior members of the Health Science campus. Fellows attend monthly meetings with CTSA faculty and may also be asked to join certain committees as needed. Fellows will also focus on mentorship and developing fellows to be future mentors for junior faculty.
  
• CUSON Student, Millie Hepburn-Smith, was selected as a recipient for the TRANSFORM (TRaining And Nurturing Scientists FOr Research that is Multidisciplinary) T32 Certificate Award, part of the new CTSA awarded to Columbia University. This is a one-year fellowship during which fellows will take research courses, attend the weekly TRANSFORM colloquium, and complete an individually-arranged research practicum with regular progress reports. Dr. Nancy Reame, Mary Dickey Lindsay Professor of Nursing and Dr. Bernadette Boden-Albala (School of Public Health) serve as co-mentors.