Lincoln nursing students showcase work

From left: Cindy Seidl, faculty member, Joanna Demeter, Stacy Oakley, Amy Harral, Jessica Lien, Christina Krug, Marissa Kroeger, Kendra Conway, Cheri Naeve, Kristy Mirabella, Justin Baldassano and Dr. Duncan.

St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center in Lincoln recently showcased work done by senior level undergraduate students from the College of Nursing Lincoln Division.

Ten students enrolled in UNMC’s Nursing Management Strategies course presented posters from data they gathered while working with managers on various hospital units.

Projects included factors related to pain control with brachial blocks; staff overtime; peak times of patient admission, transfers and discharges; preferred medications of emergency medicine physicians for menu-driven ordering system; and use of nursing interventions for patients at risk for falling.

The experience was valuable, said Kathy Duncan, Ph.D., associate professor of nursing at UNMC, because it gave students a chance to apply their skills to a realistic nursing management issue, including using descriptive analysis, working with spreadsheets and creating graphs.

“We’re very proud of the students,” Dr. Duncan said. “We’ve never been able to showcase all the projects together. St. E’s wanted to show their employees the work students have done on the units. The quality of the projects reflects the students’ work and the managers’ time and involvement.”