School Notes: School of Nursing
September/October 2008

Federal grant will enable study of heart monitoring

Teaching nurses to make optimum use of electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring is the goal of a $3.9 million research grant awarded to Professor Marjorie Funk of Yale School of Nursing. This is the largest grant ever awarded to a researcher at YSN.

The funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health will enable Professor Funk and her co-investigator, Professor Barbara Drew of the University of California-San Francisco School of Nursing, to conduct a five-year, 16-hospital clinical trial. The study will test the effect of implementing new practice standards for ECG monitoring. Professors Funk and Drew will provide an interactive online ECG monitoring education program they developed for nurses and use nurse "champions" in the hospital units to reinforce what the nurses learn in the online program. The long-term goal of the study is to improve nursing practices related to ECG monitoring for more accurate diagnosis and more timely treatment, which may lead to better outcomes for patients.

Dean testifies before Senate on childhood diabetes and obesity

Dean Margaret Grey recently testified before the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Children and Families on the subject "Childhood Obesity: The Declining Health of America's Next Generation."

"The obesity epidemic has led to an entire generation of youth developing type 2 diabetes in childhood, not in adulthood or old age as we are more used to seeing," Dean Grey stated during her testimony. "In addition to the severe physical complications of overweight and obesity, there are complications related to quality of life, depression, and academic achievement. These complications have the potential to reduce the productivity of the next generation in the work force." Dean Grey went on to describe some of her own research on approaches to preventing type 2 diabetes in youth, and underscored the need for more studies and funding for prevention programs, calling the need for such programs "critical."

Dean Grey's entire testimony is available for download athttp://nursing.yale.edu/News/Features/20/.