CHSPH newsletter | spring 2018

2018 COLLEGE OF HEALTH SCIENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

ewu.edu/chsph

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

Greetings from the CHSPH at EWU. We are completing our fourth year as a college and are excited to share the progress and achievements that we and our students have made this past academic year.

Our communication sciences and disorders students and faculty have been working with patients in the LOUD Crowd™ group, a Parkinson Voice Project therapy group. The College’s dental hygiene faculty and students were instrumental in leading and collaborating with EWU’s Veteran’s Services, the Veteran’s Administration and other organizations to serve the unmet dental needs of military veterans during our Vet’s Day interprofessional services day.

Our successful partnership with St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute continues to develop integrated and real-life learning opportunities for students in physical therapy and occupational therapy. The health services administration program established a new partnership with Ensign Services and our long term care degree certification program to provide scholarships to students working on their internships in nursing facilities throughout the United States.

The College is also leading an exciting and innovative ParaSport initiative to support and develop a EWU wheelchair basketball team – one of the first such See Dean, continued on page 2

EWU STUDENTS AND FACULTY PROVIDE SPEECH THERAPY FOR PARKINSON’S PATIENTS For nearly four years, Eastern Washington University graduate students have been working side-by-side with faculty at the University Hearing and Speech Clinic, learning how to help restore the voices of those with Parkinson’s disease.

Students in the communication sciences and disorders (CMSD) program and faculty work with patients in the LOUD Crowd group, a maintenance therapy group, to help increase the decibel level of the patient’s voice so they can easily be understood. Eastern faculty members received training for the LOUD Crowd through the Parkinson Voice Project, a nonprofit organization that provides therapy programs and training for speech-language pathologists, and now use it as a resource at the University Hearing and Speech Clinic, an educational training facility on the EWU Spokane campus.

“The neatest thing for me as a faculty member at Eastern is being able to involve students and watch them grow as they provide this therapy and interact with patients,” said Doreen Nicholas, MS, MHPA, CCC-SLP and clinic director of the University Hearing and Speech Clinic. “It’s a give and take from both sides because patients know they’re helping to educate students beyond therapy – they’re learning from patients what their day is like, how it’s tough, their needs, what it’s like to be a caregiver and learning the compassion on the side of being a spouse of someone with Parkinson’s. Our students get more than a speech therapy education.”

Patients with Parkinson’s disease begin therapy called SPEAK OUT!, where they receive individual therapy sessions three times a week for four weeks. Once they graduate from the individual session, they begin attending the LOUD Crowd group to help maintain their skills until their disease progresses to the point where they can no longer participate.

“We know with Parkinson’s disease, exercise is very, very important for maintaining the skill level they’re at,” Nicholas said. “What happens is patients with Parkinson’s talk with a really soft voice, and that’s what we work on in therapy – we try to increase the decibel level back to normal so they can be understood.”

The clients are given daily homework to work on their speech so they don’t begin to isolate themselves from social activities because people can’t hear or understand them.

So far, 40 patients have gone through individual therapy sessions, then continue with the LOUD Crowd. In the future, Nicholas hopes to continue to grow the program with the number of patients they see.

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Dean, continued from page 1

teams in the western United States. This is an exciting opportunity to recruit star athletes to Eastern and the Spokane region, and builds on the experience and talent of our faculty and the university.

Lastly, our third College graduation ceremony featured EWU nursing alumna and Washington state’s Medicaid director, MaryAnne Lindeblad. We are proud of Ms. Lindeblad’s community health leadership and passion for service. She embodies all that we aspire for in our graduates. We are also immensely proud of each of our graduates who have earned their degrees in health sciences and administration disciplines. These will be the women and men who will lead and provide health care services to you and me in the future.

I am proud to share with you the work and successes of our faculty, staff and students. We are leading the way in training innovative and collaborative allied health professionals in Washington! As always, I welcome your comments.

Laureen O’Hanlon, Dean College of Health Science and Public Health

SUPPORT THE DEAN’S EXCELLENCE FUND The Dean’s Excellence Fund enables students, professors and staff the opportunity to enhance their clinical and practice skills and participate in groundbreaking research. With your generous and thoughtful gift our students will expand their education beyond the classroom and prepare them to become great clinical leaders and practitioners upon graduation.

To learn how you or your organization can join the Dean’s Excellence Fund, contact Tamitha Shockley-French at 509.359.6846 or tshockley@ewu.edu.

CHSPH EWU AND SPOKANE HOOPFEST CREATE WINNING TEAM FOR WHEELCHAIR ATHLETES Eastern Washington University and Spokane Hoopfest Association (Spokane Hoops) are teaming up to promote wheelchair basketball at all levels in the Spokane area.

With EWU having recently launched a wheelchair basketball club team, and Spokane Hoops’ iconic 3on3 basketball tournament, Hoopfest, the partnership will create a bright future for para-athletics in the community.

The EWU wheelchair club team is the first to be formed at a university in the western United States and is moving toward developing an NCAA wheelchair basketball program this fall. The club team has already experienced success, taking 2nd place in their division at the Best of the West Wheelchair Basketball Tournament in Seattle.

Eastern received a $50,000 grant from the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation to establish the parasport program.

“EWU is grateful to the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation and Hoopfest for supporting this program,” says Donna Mann, associate dean of EWU’s College of Health Science and Public Health. “Part of our initial goal will be to demonstrate the incredible enthusiasm the Spokane community has toward supporting major athletic events.”

Spokane Hoops Association is an avid supporter of the wheelchair basketball initiative at EWU and over the years has worked closely with ParaSport Spokane and Team St. Luke’s to provide venues to meet the competitive and accessibility needs of para-athletes.

Opportunities for youth and adults with physical disabilities are substantially expanding in the Spokane region.

“Our organization strives to bring basketball to our region for all athletes,” says Executive Director Matt Santangelo. “Any opportunity to introduce new programming or reach new athletes, we stand behind and support 100 percent!”

EWU and Hoopfest are proud to provide opportunities to these community athletes.

CHSPH MARYANNE LINDEBLAD NAMED KEYNOTE SPEAKER FOR GRADUATION

The College of Health Science and Public Health hosted its third semester graduation ceremony at the Spokane Convention Center at 10 a.m. on Friday, May 4. Helping honor and celebrate our graduates was nursing alumna and invited keynote speaker MaryAnne Lindeblad.

Lindeblad brings a broad health care and administrative background to the top position in the Washington State Medicaid program. She has been an active health care professional, as well as a leader spanning most aspects of health care including acute care, long-term care, behavioral health care, eldercare and services for people with disabilities.

Prior to her appointment as state Medicaid director, she served for two years as the assistant secretary for Aging and Disability Services Administration in the Department of Social and Health Services. Previously, she was director of the Health Care Services Division of the Medicaid program. Lindeblad held a variety of leadership positions over the years, including assistant administrator of the Public Employees Benefits Board. During the 1990s, Lindeblad also worked in the private sector, serving as director of operations for Unified Physicians of Washington.

In 2010, she was selected for the inaugural class of the Medicaid Leadership Institute.

In 2015, she was inducted into the Eastern Washington University Chapter of the Upsilon Phi Delta Society. She currently chairs the executive committee for the National Academy for State Health Policy, and serves on the board of the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

EWU AND ENSIGN SERVICES PARTNERSHIP OFFERS STUDENTS LONG-TERM CARE PRACTICUM Eastern Washington University’s Bachelor of Arts in Health Services Administration with a Long-Term Care option is the first program west of the Mississippi and 13th university to receive such accreditation from the National Association of Long Term Care Administrator board.

With this accreditation comes a partnership – together, EWU and Ensign Services enables students to meet their practicum requirements at an Ensign-affiliated facility while also receiving their EWU/NAB certification in long-term care. Ensign is one of the largest long-term care facilities in the U.S. Upon completion of the practicum, students may have an opportunity to receive a management and leadership position at an Ensign-affiliated facility.

“We are seeking highly-qualified and committed students to join our Ensign-affiliated operations as part of our leadership team,” said Angeliza Fontillas of Ensign. “We feel that recruiting students at Eastern, and those with NAB-accredited certification, is consistent with our client’s culture of providing excellent service in meeting the needs of their patients and their families.”

The program is already underway with one student graduate participating in this unique collaboration.

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DENTAL HYGIENE STUDENTS HELP VETERANS

The EWU Dental Hygiene Department participated in their eighth consecutive Vets’ Day this year, providing low-cost dental services to veterans.

For the third year, the event included the involvement from the inter-professional teams of the College of Health Science and Public Health, who treated 45 veterans with dental care, including health screenings for 12 of those veterans.

Dental examinations, radiographs, dental cleanings and hearing loss screening were among some of the services provided.

Together, 120 CHSPH students, faculty and staff, including 12 from WSU, supplied $21,539 worth of dental services. Followup appointments were also scheduled for some clients.

Students reflected on the experience as a way to gain insight to other health fields from their peers as well as being a part of a diverse health team.

4 EWU’S PARTNERSHIP WITH ST. LUKE’S CLINIC A SUCCESS To say a lot has taken place during the first year of the partnership between Providence St. Luke’s outpatient therapy clinic and Eastern’s physical and occupational therapy students and faculty would be an understatement.

The clinic, inside the Spokane Teaching Health Clinic in Spokane’s University District, utilizes occupational and sports injury rehabilitation equipment and serves patients from the community. Students are given hands-on, real-world experience as they work alongside the St. Luke’s therapists. Eastern students have exclusive use of the clinic – which is key because

CHSPH clinical work opportunities are at a premium.

“That really helps us and gives us a place to try different models in clinical education because we’re in this close, very positive relationship with Providence St. Luke’s,” explained Donna Mann, associate dean of CHSPH and associate professor of OT. “We’re doing a two student/ one supervisor preceptor model. It’s working very well.”

In addition to this model, there’s an observation room that looks out into the large gym space and the smaller clinic space. That’s designed so groups of students observe the therapist working with his or her patients in a clinical environment.

“We let the patients know that the

students are there and they have the patient’s permission to observe,” said Mann. “It’s kind of fun; sometimes the patients invite the students in.”

There’s a faculty member in the observation room who can add more information, ask the students questions to facilitate clinical reasoning, and help guide them as to what they need to know.

The clinic uses state-of-the art equipment. In addition to an anti-gravity treadmill, the university purchased the Dynavision – a leading sports training and neuro-cognitive rehabilitation device.

Among other things, the Dynavision is used to determine when a patient can safely return to driving after an ailment or accident.

A new area of study underway in the program is a concussion protocol.

It will involve students, faculty and St. Luke’s staff in concussion prevention and intervention. St. Luke’s has already been doing some work in this area.

Another exciting development is video conferencing, where the clinic will broadcast a session live into the classroom.

Mann says that Eastern has been very supportive in the university-clinic project.

“They’ve provided us the funding to outfit a clinic so that we can educate students at best practice standards.

And the support on the part of St. Luke’s has been amazing. When we say that we’d like to have sessions broadcast into the classroom – that’s kind of a big ask.

There’s a lot of trust. I think that St. Luke’s and Eastern really enjoy a nice, trusting relationship and you can do a lot with that.”

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