School of Nursing Assistant Professor Katherine (Kate) Doyon has received a $100,000 grant from The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation to apply a nursing-led intervention for seriously ill patients.
Doyon will design a guide to help clinicians and refugees communicate with one another, ensuring that patients receive good care.
Since clinicians and refugees often do not share common cultures, languages or communication norms, a community advisory board made up of relevant stakeholders (including refugees) will develop the communication guide together, using a holistic and multifaceted approach.
The guide will be applied for the care of seriously ill refugees, since this population is at a high risk for negative health outcomes.
As Doyon explained in her grant application, “Improved communication will impact how refugees with serious illnesses seek and respond to the healthcare system, laying the foundation for increased engagement and trust which will ultimately lead to improved overall outcomes for refugees.”
For this particular grant, known as Hillman Emergent Innovation: Serious Illness and End of Life grants, the foundation typically receives several hundred applications; Doyon’s is one of seven projects chosen. While researchers normally receive funding for one year, she received funding to span a two-year project.