Enabling nurses with disabilities
Edwards receives Macy’s grant to study inclusive technical standards
Living with a disability should not categorically disqualify aspiring nurses from studying and working in health care, yet technical standards set by schools and clinics often serve to exclude qualified applicants.
Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston Associate Professor Allison P. Edwards, DrPH, MSN, RN, CNE, CDDN, FAAN, will use a $150,000, two-year grant from the Macy’s Foundation to develop a toolkit to help nursing schools adopt and implement inclusive technical standards that can open doors for potential students.
“There is a place for everyone in nursing,” Edwards said. “Addressing the national nursing shortage requires fresh approaches to recruitment and retention, and that includes removing barriers that might discourage people with disabilities from pursuing nursing as a career.”
For “Project DNA: A blueprint and reference guide inspiring DIVERSITY in NURSING education toward ADOPTING inclusive technical standards,” Edwards has assembled a team including faculty from California State University-East Bay and The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. They will begin by exploring barriers and facilitators to nursing schools’ adoption of inclusive technical standards, which focus on the essential functions nurses must be able to perform without prescribing specific methods or physical requirements.
A key partner in the project is the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND), Edwards said. NOND will help create a survey that will be sent to its members, nursing schools, and other stakeholder groups, and it will assemble an expert panel of nurses with a variety of disabilities to help evaluate the tools developed. Other collaborating nonprofits are the Alliance for Disability in Health Care Education and TIRR Memorial Hermann.
Edwards has long been an advocate for educating nursing students about caring for patients with disabilities. In 2017, she established the endowed Joan and Stanford Alexander Fellowship in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities for undergraduate nursing students at Cizik School of Nursing, which earned her the Innovations in Professional Nursing Award in 2022 from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). Students in this fellowship complete 90 hours of clinical, observation, and enrichment activities in primary, acute, and community clinical settings.
As an educator, Edwards has helped accommodate students experiencing conditions such as anxiety and attention deficit disorder, and she looks forward to finding ways to make nursing school accessible to students living with a wide range of disabilities.
“Nurses who experience the world differently can bring invaluable perspectives to patient care and health care systems, even if they may not be well suited to some clinical settings,” Edwards said. “Our goal through this grant is to develop and broadly publicize tools so that nursing schools can help match all students to roles where they can contribute and thrive while also supporting patient safety.”
Serving as co-investigators on the project are Cizik School of Nursing Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement Elda Ramirez, PhD, RN, FNP-BC; Alina Engelman, DrPH, MPH, California State University-East Bay, Department of Public Health; Melissa L. Desroches, PhD, RN, CNE, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. Claire Valderama-Wallace, PhD, MPH, RN, and Sahar Nouredini, PhD, RN, of the California State University-East Bay Department of Nursing are consultants.
