Nursing Research
Optimizing Care and Education Through Research
At Creighton University’s College of Nursing, we’re moving big ideas forward. As part of our Jesuit, Catholic mission, we teach students to strive for magis, or “more,” and nursing research is essential to providing “more” in healthcare. It’s how we find better treatment options, discover new approaches to care and champion safety. Our faculty are contributing to the innovation of practice and advancing teaching techniques. They’re engaged in discovery and supported at the institutional level.
Center for Faculty, Innovation, Research and Education (FIRE)
Creighton’s FIRE Center is at the heart of the College of Nursing’s culture of scholarship. The donor-funded center was established to elevate the culture of research within the college and will help pay for research time and secure seed funding. The Center supports innovative research and scholarly lectures, while addressing critical issues in nursing. FIRE initiatives include:
- The Lenke Scholar endowed research fund
- The Brooks Scholar research fund
- Sponsorship of the Distinguished Scholar lecture series, which brings in speakers on topics like how to enhance nursing research
- Facilitating student-faculty research collaboration
The FIRE Center, which echoes the charge of Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola to “set the world on fire” and spark change, enables faculty to devote time solely to focus on research.
Creighton Develops Tools to Evaluate Nursing Simulation Performance
As simulations become more common in nursing education, Creighton’s nursing faculty have led the way in creating an instrument to gauge the effectiveness of clinical learning in simulated scenarios. Through research, they developed the Creighton Competency Evaluation Instrument (C-CEI®). It’s a proven system for gauging performance in simulations, and the tool has become widely used.
Leading in Palliative Care Research
The College of Nursing is at the forefront of incorporating palliative care education into its curriculum, assembling a team of expert faculty from both the Omaha and Phoenix campuses, each specializing in a different aspect of palliative care. The team includes:
- Mandy Boesch Kirkpatrick, PhD, BSN’05, MSN, RN-BC
- Meghan Walker Potthoff, PhD, BSN’01, APRN-NP
- Jennifer Jessen, EdD
- Other interprofessional faculty
The group is working to identify new research opportunities as well as areas within the curriculum where palliative care education could be expanded. As an interdisciplinary approach to health care aimed at optimizing quality of life for people with long-term and complex illnesses, palliative care is a perfect fit with Creighton’s mission.
Other faculty are contributing to palliative care research through the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) project:
- Lindsay M. Inverson, DNP, APRN-NP, ACNP-BC, and Theresa Jizba, DNP, AGACNP-BC, ACHPN, have published manuscripts related to the graduate ELNEC program
- Marilee Aufdenkamp, RN, MSN; Whitney Van De Graaff, MSN, RN, CPN; Cindy Lou Selig, DNP, APRN, RNC-OB, CPLC; and Kirkpatrick are working on an IRB-approved project that assesses the undergraduate ELNEC program
- Jizba and Kirkpatrick recently published an article on interprofessional palliative care competencies, while Potthoff and Jizba were invited to serve as regional champions for ELNEC
Endowed Chairs and Scholars
Creighton supports nursing research through endowed chairs and scholars within the College of Nursing. Chairholders’ and scholars’ talents leave an indelible mark on their fields, their students and their colleagues.
The Dr. C. C. and Mabel L. Criss and Drs. Gilbert and Clinton Beirne Endowed Chair in Nursing (2007)
Joan Ortmeier Lappe, PhD, RN, MS’85, FAAN, Chairholder
Professor of Nursing and Professor of Medicine
Associate Dean of Research
Director of Clinical and Pediatric Studies, Osteoporosis Research Center
JOANLAPPE@creighton.edu
With a passion for health promotion, Lappe has studied osteoporosis since before it was well understood. Along the way, she has contributed to advances in preventing and treating bone disease. Over the course of her career, Lappe has earned more than $15 million in external funding, mostly from the National Institutes of Health.
Meghan Potthoff, PhD, APRN-NP, PCPNP-BC, CPNP-AC, Chairholder
Associate Professor of Nursing
MeghanPotthoff@creighton.edu
Potthoff focused her doctoral research on developing an intervention to help parents of children with a life-threatening illness determine their priorities. The result was a card game called Go-Wish Pediatrics. The tool includes prompts, which help families become aware of their priorities and communicate about them effectively.
Martha J. Todd, PhD, APRN-NP, Chairholder
Associate Professor
MARTHATODD@creighton.edu
Todd’s research has helped to develop and improve the Creighton Competency Evaluation Instrument, or C-CEI, a checklist in which the skills students must master to prove competence in nursing are distilled into four categories and 22 nursing behaviors.
This endowed chair alternates between School of Medicine and College of Nursing every 5 years.
Sara Elizabeth Banzhaf, DNP, APRN-NP, PMHNP-BC
Assistant Professor, Nursing
Track Leader for the Psychiatric-Mental Health Track
SaraBanzhaf@creighton.edu
Banzhaf’s research focus includes:
- Experience of Depression in Impoverished Ethnically Diverse Women and Community Based Interventions
- Development of innovative teaching and learning strategies for Psychiatric-Mental Health curriculum and practicum experiences for undergraduate and graduate nursing students
- The role of a PMHNP in a community-based model facilitating a successful transition to employment for a high risk population
- Interprofessional Practice to support integration of psychiatric-mental health promoting quality outcomes.
- Innovative and Quality Education for PMHNP
Mandy Boesch Kirkpatrick, PhD, BSN’05, MSN, RN-BC
Associate Professor, Nursing
MandyKirkpatrick@creighton.edu
Kirkpatrick has been named a Brooks Scholar, with funding provided thanks to a donation from donor Ella Stradinger Brooks, PhD. The Brooks gift will fund a portion of Kirkpatrick’s time as she works on her latest project. Alongside co-principal investigator Meghan Walker Potthoff, PhD, associate professor and holder of the Keough Family Endowed Chair in Nursing, Kirkpatrick is working to establish an interprofessional clinic at Creighton in which students and expert faculty from across disciplines will work with Nebraska patients on planning for the end of their lives.
