Meet our winners - NE Innovators Grant

Meet our winners

Nebraska Stroke Association Board

Project Description: With their winning grant funds, they will develop a “Go-To” repository of resources through an interactive website. They will also provide support videos and quarterly live-stream presentations by practitioners.

Nebraska Statewide Stroke Resource Repository (PDF)
NSA Board - Nebraska Innovator Grant

Contact Information:
Chuck Bacus
[email protected]		 Creating Connections: Using Student Tele-Teams
to Empower Rural Stroke Survivors

Teresa Cochran, PT, DPT, MA, FNAP
University of Nebraska Medical Center

Kathleen Volkman, MS, PT, NCS
University of Nebraska Medical Center

Victoria Kennel, PhD
University of Nebraska Medical Center

Miechelle McKelvey, PhD, CCC/SLP
University of Nebraska Kearney

Lou Jensen, OTD, OTR/L
Creighton University

Project Description: supports creation of “Tele-teams” that will connect stroke survivors and caregivers with interprofessional groups of students from the three University of Nebraska campuses. This grant is expected to have a two-fold benefit. First, it will provide support to stroke survivors and caregivers, and secondly, students will learn team-based telehealth skills, as well as insight into the lived experience of stroke.

Creating Connections: Using Student Tele-Teams to Empower Rural Stroke Survivors (PDF)
Theresa Cochran - Nebraska Innovator Grant

Contact Information:
University of Nebraska, Division of Physical Education, College of Allied Health Profession
Teresa Cochran
[email protected]

Additional Grant Applicants

Andrew McCarty
Mary Lanning Healthcare in Hastings, Nebraska

Project Description: Mary Lanning currently has an outpatient stroke follow-up clinic. Their project would expand their current outpatient stroke services to surrounding communities. Through the existing clinic, they have seen greater medication adherence, compliance of care and patient satisfaction. Because of the lack of neurology and resources in Critical Access Hospitals, there has been a growing need for appropriate follow-up for stroke patients in rural areas. This grant would allow them to have a formalized plan to accept these patients and provide telemedicine support to Critical Access Hospitals.

Current MLH Outpatient Multidisciplinary Stroke Clinic Model (PDF)
Andrew McCarty - Nebraska Innovator Summit

Contact Information:
Andrew McCarty
Mary Lanning Healthcare
[email protected]		 Dr. Marco Gonzalez Castellon
University of Nebraska Medical Center

Project Description: This project would develop and implement a web application to provide Emergency Department providers with a mechanism to visually view the real-time progress, assessment and management of the acute stroke patient, starting with the arrival of the patient in the ED through all treatment decisions. The app would be piloted with a hospital in a rural community to study the effectiveness of real-time feedback in improving stroke treatment times for thrombolytics.

"Stopwatch" for Acute Stroke Treatment in Emergency Room (PDF)

Contact Information:
Marco Gonzalez Castellon
University of Nebraska Medical Center, Nebraska Medicine
[email protected]

Delaney Shuttler
University of South Dakota, Department of Health Services Administration.

Project Description: An exclusive agreement with the inventor of a patent-pending stroke rehabilitation exo-skeletal suit will allow this student organization to design a web-based, neuromuscular re-education program for stroke patients in Nebraska. The rehabilitative tool, coupled with a web-based neuromuscular re-education program, will offer aid to stroke patients to rehabilitate from home. Their rehabilitative suit and accompanying program would help stroke patients recover faster by continuing with their therapeutic exercises outside of the rehabilitation center.

It would also offer stroke patients who may not have the ability to afford or access to rehabilitative services, or who may need therapy past the reimbursement amount allowed, a way to rehabilitate that might not otherwise be available to them.

Furthermore, this program would allow stroke patients to do their rehabilitative exercises from the comfort of their home without the need to travel long distances during dangerous winter conditions or risk infections during the current pandemic. The intent is to pilot this project with two rural hospitals in Nebraska.

Web-Based Rehabilitation Program with Exo-Skeletal Suit (PDF)
Delaney Schuttler - Nebraska Innovator Summit


Contact Information:
Delaney Shuttler, Student
Carole South-Winter, Professor
University of South Dakota
[email protected]

Melissa Griffith
CHI Health St. Francis Medical Center in Grand Island, Nebraska.

Project Description: The grant would allow St. Francis to purchase a Bioness BITS, which is an interactive therapy tool serving a vast array of patient populations, including strokes. The BITS machine addresses balance, coordination, visual spacing and sequencing, along with cognitive processing. The BITS machine will significantly impact Stroke Rehabilitation for rural patients by giving them accessibility to state-of-the-art healthcare in Western Nebraska. St. Francis would be the pilot hospital for CHI Health to replicate at other hospitals in the system.

CHI Health Saint Francis Rehabilitation Unit (PDF)
Melissa Griffith - Nebraska Innovator Summit


Contact Information:
Melissa Griffith
CHI Health
Saint Francis Medical Center
[email protected]

Last Reviewed: Oct 30, 2020