News
D.N.P. student projects change lives and place in GVSU 3-Minute Thesis Competition
February 24, 2021
Darby Disselkoen (pictured left), a graduate student pursuing a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree, won first place at the sixth annual 3-Minute Thesis Competition. Mary Chenge (pictured right), a graduate student pursuing a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree, took second place.
Story by Shannon Dale
“My DNP project has by far been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. My project is going to have a positive impact on the healthcare system and will address a real need in our community,” shares Mary Chenge, a Doctor of Nursing Practice student and participant in Grand Valley State University’s 3 Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition.
The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program in the Kirkhof College of Nursing educates nurses to transform American health care. It is through students’ Doctoral projects that they put their education to work in service of their local community, working directly with their healthcare placement site to identify gaps in service and develop programming to better serve their clients. These inspiring quality improvement projects have an immediate impact on the patients and often, the students themselves.
At this year’s GVSU 3 Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition, DNP student projects shone a light on the phenomenal talent of our student nurses. The 3MT® competition allows graduate students to present their scholarship in just 3 minutes with the aid of a single slide. The winner of GVSU’s 3MT® receives a cash prize, as well full funding to represent GVSU at the Midwest Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) 3MT® virtual competition in late March 2021.
With five DNP students representing the Kirkhof College of Nursing, their scholarship highlights some of the greatest needs in healthcare, providing unique solutions to transform patient outcomes. The top two finishers, Darby Disselkoen in first place, and Mary Chenge in second place, are both students in the DNP program.
“Teen Risk: The Provider’s Responsibility?”
Darby Disselkoen, who won the 3MT® competition, worked with a local primary care facility, who wanted to improve their adolescent preventative care by implementing the well-respected Rapid Assessment for Adolescent Preventive Services (RAAPS) tool to identify and provide interventions for each teen patient. RAAPS assessment is comprised of 21 questions that can be answered quickly by the patient to assess any potential factors that could pose a health risk. The challenge was setting up a structure to not only screen for these risks, but then respond to them.
Disselkoen worked to implement the RAAPS assessment in each primary care appointment and developed county-specific resource sheets for physician use. The document has statistics about teen risk factors, provides local resources, and enables the provider to track issues that a social worker can follow up on after the office visit.
“Through this project, I realized just how many adolescents really struggle and, when asked, how much they will open up to their primary care providers. Some of these topics are awkward and scary for our teen patients and it can be hard in a short 20-minute visit to try to assess and respond to these issues. But from my project, it is clear that many of these clients need us to bring up these issues,” explains Disselkoen.
Now through the end of her final semester in the DNP program, Disselkoen will analyze the success of the program, reviewing the results of the assessments to look for patterns in risk for the teens they are serving. Upon graduation, Disselkoen hopes to bring this assessment and resource guidance to her own practice.
“Darby’s DNP project demonstrates leadership in systems and in clinical practice. Her findings showed wide use of the tool increased interventions for high-risk adolescent behaviors such as suicide risk, internet risks, and impaired driving,” shares faculty advisor and assistant professor of nursing, Dr. Dianne Slager.
Disselkoen will go on to compete in the Midwest Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) 3MT® virtual competition in late March 2021 with the chance to qualify to compete at the national level.
“Addressing Social Determinants of Health in Home-Palliative Care”
Mary Chenge placed second in the 3MT® competition for her project on addressing social determinants of health in patients with advanced chronic disease. Chenge worked with a home-based palliative care service to determine why patients toward the end of life saw an increase in hospital visits even when they are utilizing home health care. She implemented a protocol for screening patients in home-based palliative care setting for eleven key social determinants of health including issues of food insecurity, lack of transportation, substance abuse, or mental illness.
Providers are then able to log into the patient’s record to track which social determinants of health are impacting overall heath.
“It has been really meaningful knowing that we are creating that much patient impact by providing a broader picture of different factors that impact patient’s health outcomes. We can transform our healthcare outside of the hospital just by identifying these issues and connecting patients to community,” says Chenge.
Finally, after identifying these social determinants impacting their patients, providers are able to refer to their social work staff to connect patients to local community organizations who can help fill these need gaps.
“Mary Chenge exemplifies the passion that our DNP students bring to their project work to identify a “wicked problem” in a practice setting and bring evidence-based, practical solutions to transform healthcare delivery,” shares faculty advisor and associate professor of nursing, Dr. Dianne Conrad. “Congratulations to Mary for not only tackling this difficult problem for the organization, but also raising public awareness on the importance of assessing and addressing social determinants of health!”
To learn more about the DNP program, visit the Doctor of Nursing Practice webpage.