Ashland nursing school faculty receive BAYADA Awards

Ashland created a virtual clinical experience to improve students’ cultural competence levels.
Ashland created a virtual clinical experience to improve students’ cultural competence levels. | File photo
Team members from the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Ashland University recently earned the 2016 BAYADA Award for Innovation in Healthcare Education.

The recipients include Lisa Young, an assistant professor and the director of the university’s Simulation Center at Schar College of Nursing and Health Sciences and Faye Grund, the dean of Ashland’s College of Nursing Health and Sciences.

The BAYADA Awards, founded in 2004, are designed to honor nurses for their technological innovations for teaching and practicing nursing. This year’s recipients at Ashland created a virtual clinical experience to improve students’ cultural competence levels.

“They increased their cultural awareness and they learned nursing interventions that were needed in the community to improve outcomes,” Young said. “This is not the only area where health care providers can make an impact. If we can get into the communities we can affect change and improve outcomes.”

The program has been successful so far.

“We wanted our students to see a different population,” Young said. “The students were able to see that while the setting was different, there were some similarities in the needs of the patients. Access to care was a problem for both, just for different reasons. The environment and support systems were very different and the patient interventions had to focus on the needs of the patient and the cultural differences in each.”