Ann Laughlin

Partnering with schools: a win-win experience.

In many states, budget cuts have influenced school systems to question whether school nurses are necessary. Consequently, many schools no longer have a nurse to coordinate school health services. Creighton University School of Nursing saw this situation as an opportunity. Using schools as clinical sites for nursing students has resulted in positive outcomes for all involved. Competencies successfully demonstrated by nursing students have included understanding concepts of health and illness, identification of strategies to promote and protect the school-age population, and the ability to provide population-focused prevention within the community. Faculty think the school population is healthier and school personnel have increased knowledge of health promotion and protection strategies for school-age children as a result of the school health project. The education provided serves to promote the well-being of students, families, and the community and prepares them to make health-related choices. The project has also resulted in health benefits for the community.

Combining Service Learning and Research: Partnering With Schools

Providing service and research experiences for nursing students is a challenge. The authors discuss a partnership with local parochial schools in which nursing students presented health information and collected data. Through this partnership, families and school personnel gained knowledge of health promotion behaviors, and nursing students were involved in a service-learning and research project.

The effect of increasing dairy calcium intake of adolescent girls on changes in body fat and weight

Background: Overweight is epidemic in adolescents and is a major concern because it tracks into adulthood. Evidence supports the efficacy of high-calcium, high-dairy diets in achieving healthy weight in adults. However, no randomized controlled trials of the effect of dairy food on weight and body fat in adolescents have been reported to our knowledge.Objective: The aim was to determine whether increasing calcium intake to recommended amounts with dairy foods in adolescent girls with habitually low calcium intakes would decrease body fat gain compared with girls who continued their low calcium intake. Participants had above-the-median body mass index (BMI; in kg/m2).Design: We enrolled 274 healthy postmenarcheal 13- to 14-y-old overweight girls who had calcium intakes of ≤600 mg/d in a 12-mo randomized controlled trial. Girls were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to 1 of 2 groups within each of 3 BMI percentiles: 50th to <70th, 70th to <85th, and 85th to <98th. The assignments were 1) dairy, which included low-fat milk or yogurt servings providing ≥1200 mg Ca/d or 2) control, which included the usual diet of ≤600 mg Ca/d.Results: We failed to detect a statistically significant difference between groups in percentage of body fat gain over 12 mo (mean ± SEM: dairy 0.40% ± 0.53% > control; P < 0.45). The effect of the intervention did not differ by BMI percentile stratum. There was no difference in weight change between the 2 groups.Conclusion: Our findings that the dairy group gained body fat similar to the control group provide no support for dairy food as a stratagem to decrease body fat or weight gain in overweight adolescent girls. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01066806.

The development of an instrument to evaluate interprofessional student team competency

ABSTRACT Healthcare institutions, accreditation agencies for higher learning, and organizations such as the National Academy of Medicine in the United States, support interprofessional education (IPE) opportunities. However, incorporating IPE opportunities into academic settings remains difficult. One challenge is assessing IPE learning and practice outcomes, especially at the level of student performance to ensure graduates are “collaboration-ready”. The Creighton-Interprofessional Collaborative Evaluation (C-ICE) instrument was developed to address the need for a measurement tool for interprofessional student team performance. Four interprofessional competency domains provide the framework for the C-ICE instrument. Twenty-six items were identified as essential to include in the C-ICE instrument. This instrument was found to be both a reliable and a valid instrument to measure interprofessional interactions of student teams. Inter-rater reliability as measured by Krippendorff’s nominal alpha (nKALPHA) ranged from .558 to .887; with four of the five independent assessments achieving nKALPHA greater than or equal to 0.796. The findings indicated that the instrument is understandable (Gwet’s alpha coefficient (gAC) 0.63), comprehensive (gAC = 0.62), useful and applicable (gAC = 0.54) in a variety of educational settings. The C-ICE instrument provides educators a comprehensive evaluation tool for assessing student team behaviors, skills, and performance.

Clinical Trial of Dairy in Adolescent Girls: Effect on Bone Accrual

Peak bone mass is acknowledged to be the best predictor of osteoporotic fracture in older adults. Thus, it is critical that children maximize their potential for bone mass accrual. Evidence shows that providing calcium supplementation to children with low calcium intake will increase bone mass accrual. However, few studies have evaluated the effect of increasing dairy foods on bone mass accrual in children. This chapter describes outcomes of a randomized clinical trial that examined the effects of increases in dairy food on bone accrual in adolescent girls who had low baseline dairy and calcium intake.

Preparing Students for Team-Based Care for Vulnerable Populations

Health professionals have an obligation to improve both the health of the individual and the public in a time of scarce resources. The Institute of Medicine (IOM), Healthy People Curriculum Task Force and professional education accreditation standards indicate the need for health care professionals to demonstrate competencies related to community engagement, basic health promotion skills and the ability to work effectively in interprofessional teams. An Interprofessional Course, IPE 413: Developing Care for a Vulnerable Population provides students the opportunity to collaborate to address health needs in cooperation with a community partner. Students work in teams to address the complex health care needs of an individual community member. The one hour elective course is open to students from nursing, occupational therapy, pharmacy, social work, and exercise science. Efforts are underway to explore the possibility of offering this course to medical students. Students are assessed on the knowledge and experience gained through this interprofessional experience using the Team Skills Scale and student reflections. Faculties from each of the disciplines utilize a collaborative model in the instructional design of the course. The content is co-taught and faculty not only role model interprofessional care, but also serve as mentors and resource personnel for the students as they work with their clients. Received: 07/10/2015 Accepted: 08/28/2015