Meet Our Director

Dr. Heidi Keeler, received her baccalaureate degree in nursing from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA, MSN/MBA from Liberty University, and her doctoral degree in nursing from The University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Dr. Keeler’s clinical background includes adult medical-surgical nursing, primary care, and long-term care.

Dr. Keeler joined the faculty at the University Of Nebraska Medical Center College Of Nursing in 2011 as an assistant professor in the Community-Based Health Department, which is now named the Office of Transformational Practice and Partnerships. She served as clinical faculty for population health nursing and as faculty for Health Policy and Nursing research.

Dr. Keeler has served as a nurse planner in the Continuing interProfessional Development and Innovation Office since 2011, collaborating with multiple medical and professional disciplines to develop and implement continuing education programs. She was instrumental in the development of the online Gerontological Nurse Certification Preparation Course, still serving as lead faculty of the program to date. She served as Director of Educational Design for the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska (BHECN) from 2013-2015, where she was instrumental in leading teams that designed and developed online learning curriculum and modules.

In 2016, Dr. Keeler assumed the role of Lead Nurse Planner and Director for our office. Dr. Keeler’s areas of clinical research interest revolve around health promotion and prevention,  health policy/advocacy, and innovative workforce development. She is interested in advancing scholarship in nursing education, particularly concerning the advancement of distance education and eLearning delivery and collection of outcomes metrics.

Dr. Keeler envisions an exciting explosion of innovative ways to educate nurses into practice at the top of their scopes of practice. Our office is driving the field of continuing education forward, looking at all forms of technology to engage nurses and other health care workers in meaningful educational experiences.

Our office strives to improve overall educational systems and platforms, concentrating on how IT systems can improve the educational experience, outcomes evaluation collection and analysis, and improve overall program efficiencies. Our office envisions continuing nursing education to be at the forefront of dissemination and implementation research, examining new ways to effectively improve nurses’ performance through knowledge and skills acquisition. Our office is looking at various forms of live and online simulation to create a learning atmosphere that will improve cognitive functioning as well as address how stress and emotional response affect these outcomes.