M. Jana Broadhurst, MD, PhD, DTM&H, director of the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory, and her team work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop better and faster diagnostic testing.
The Edwin G. andDorothy Balbach Davis Global Center, home to iEXCEL and the National Quarantine Unit, officially opens on the UNMC campus. The facility provides realistically replicated health care settings in which teams can practice and experiment safely.
In March 2020, Dr. Lowe, vice chancellor for interpersonal health training and education, leads a team in developing a UV system for decontaminating personal protective equipment (PPE) for re-use due to the global supply shortage.
In April 2020, a team at the UNMC McGoogan Health Sciences Library unite with seven local organizations to collect objects, stories, photographs, and more to document the history of the pandemic’s impact on Nebraskans. This collection is on-going.
Andre Kalil, MD, MPH, leads a team at Nebraska Medicine in enrolling some of the first COVID-19 patients in a National Institute of Health clinical trial that started in February to study Remdesivir as a therapeutic treatment for the virus.
The NU Board of Regents approves the new master's level respiratory educational program in the College of Allied Health Professions, led by Dean Kyle Meyer, PhD. This is one of only six entry-level master's programs in the country. Dean Meyer noted the workforce demand for this degree, which has only increased due to the pandemic.
Christie Barnes, MD, Jayme Dowdall, MD, and Ben Stobbe, iEXCEL assistant vice chancellor for clinical simulation, are part of a team that creates ONPACE, an educational trainer for conducting nasopharyngeal swabs. This model helps improve the skills of those performing swab tests and greatly decreases false negative results.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed serious gaps in the U.S. health care system. To tackle this problem, NETEC has established a National Special Pathogen System (NSPS) of Care to help create a coordinated and standardized model of care across the country.
The Healthcare and Emergency Responder Organization Education through Simulation (HEROES) program resumes full in-person training across the state after a year of virtual and small focused programs in emergency preparedness. New trainings include donning and doffing protocols and collection of lab specimens for testing.
Over the last year, the UNMC College of Dentistry has been a leader in its response to the pandemic. From remote education to redesigning dental care, a safe return to clinical work, and providing evening clinical hours for students to meet requirements, the college continues to meet the challenges of the pandemic.
The new Clinical Research Unit (CRU) boasts negative pressure exam rooms, a pharmacy, a lab, and separate "hot" and "cold" zones that give UNMC and Nebraska Medicine the infrastructure necessary to serve as a host site in a national clinical trial to test an investigational COVID-19 vaccine. Christopher Kratochvil, MD, executive director of clinical research at the Global Center for Health Security, Major Tiffany Welsh, UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey Gold, MD, and Matthew Lunning, DO, medical director at the CRU, cut the ribbon to open the new facility.
The UNMC College of Nursing has received a three-year, $2.2 million grant to work with partners across Nebraska to develop and deploy resources that will promote resiliency and mental health in the nursing workforce. Nurses face many stressors in the workplace that the pandemic as amplified. The intent is to help manage stressful situations, avoid burnout, and address suicide and substance use disorders.
UNMC's Global Center for Health Security receives the Headliner of the Year Award from the Greater Omaha Chamber for being a leader in biopreparedness research, education and training throughout the pandemic. OneWorld Community Health Centers also awards UNMC the 2020 Milagro Award, recognizing the medical center's continued partnership during the early days of the pandemic.
In July 2020, UNMC was first to report the presence of intact, culturable SARS-CoV-2 virus in small particles exhaled by COVID-19 patients. In August 2021, UNMC's findings on airborne transmission passed scientific peer review and was accepted for publication by Nature's Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology.
UNMC and Children's Hospital & Medical Center researchers, with the help of the Child Health Research Institute, are testing a vaccine for COVID-19 in the youngest population to date. The Nebraska group, part of a global study with 90 clinical sites, is following participants including children age 6 months to 4 years old who do not yet have formal FDA/CDC approvals and continues to monitor 5-to-11-year-olds.
UNMC public health and infectious disease expert James Lawler, MD, presents an animation created by iEXCEL to demonstrate how the COVID-19 Delta variant attacks the respiratory system. The animation also highlights how the COVID-19 vaccine works to repel the highly contagious, rapid-spreading variant.
UNMC/Nebraska Medicine use the first doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to vaccinate frontline health care workers in December 2020. By January 2021, UNMC/Nebraska Medicine opens vaccine access to employees and clinical students.
