Badger Nurses Collaborating on Covid-19 Vaccine Education and Delivery (BN-CoVED)
“The UW–Madison School of Nursing has a long history of partnering with campus and local public health departments to staff influenza vaccination clinics and during public health emergencies. Our prior experience with these efforts demonstrates that we are an ideal partner in contributing on multiple levels of implementation and outreach.”
– Susan Zahner, DrPH, RN, FAAN, Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, UW–Madison School of Nursing
At a Glance
Through the Badger Nurses Collaborating on Covid Vaccination and Education Delivery (BN-CoVED) project, the UW–Madison School of Nursing contributed to the statewide vaccination effort by training faculty and students to provide accurate COVID-19 information to the public and to safely give the vaccine. The School of Nursing collaborated with four UW System nursing schools: Green Bay, Oshkosh, Eau Claire, and Stevens Point, along with the schools’ community partners to staff vaccination clinics.
Between February and June 2021, 648 nursing students and 68 faculty contributed a collective 10,196 hours of time to the vaccination effort. Sixty community organizations were assisted by nursing students and faculty during the vaccination roll-out. The success of this project has led to strengthened and new partnerships among many public health departments, health care centers, schools, tribal health organizations, and organizations involved in the state’s vaccination campaign, as well as prepared students for their career as nurses.
The Challenge
With the arrival of effective COVID-19 vaccines came the necessity for tremendous effort and coordination across many organizations and governmental agencies to vaccinate those at higher risk for COVID-19 first, and then the entire population of Wisconsin. Continuing instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic strained faculty and administrative resources at nursing schools and impacted their ability to aid in vaccination efforts. Thus, additional resources and coordination were needed to address unprecedented challenges of COVID-19 mass vaccination across Wisconsin.
Project Goals
The goals of this project were to prepare students, faculty, and BN-CoVED volunteers to safely provide COVID-19 vaccinations and education about COVID-19 prevention and vaccination; develop systems to support recruitment, scheduling, oversight, and evaluations of COVID vaccination and education programs by UW–Madison pre-nursing and nursing students, volunteer faculty, and volunteer BN-CoVED members; and provide staffing for vaccination clinics and community education programs as requested by UW–Madison campus, local health departments in surrounding counties, and other community partners.
Results
The UW–Madison School of Nursing collaborated with four UW System nursing schools in Eau Claire, Green Bay, Oshkosh, Stevens Point and community organizations to provide vaccinations to Wisconsin communities.
As a result of this project, 648 nursing students and 68 faculty contributed a collective 10,196 hours of time to the vaccination effort. A total of 586 unique undergraduate pre-licensure student nurses (252 students from UW–Madison) and 62 unique RN/post-licensure nursing students (3 students from UW–Madison) participated in COVID-19 vaccination clinics across the schools. Additionally, 68 unique faculty participated in oversight of students doing vaccination or provided vaccination themselves (21 faculty from UW–Madison). Students and faculty assisted at 71 community organizations with vaccination clinics through this project (14 served by UW–Madison students and faculty) including public health departments, tribal health centers, university health services, state corrections facilities and K-12 schools. In addition to vaccination efforts, 23 students participated in COVID-19 education events for 10 different organizations involving special populations and events such as corrections, Tibetans, and Juneteenth.
New partnerships were formed with organizations that engaged in the state’s vaccination campaign including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Wisconsin National Guard and the State’s Mobile Vaccination Teams program.
Looking to the Future
The five UW schools and colleges of nursing will continue to focus on educating incoming student nurses about COVID-19 vaccination using tools developed through this project. Students will continue to have opportunities to provide COVID-19 vaccination through their clinical and experiential learning courses that are part of each school’s curricula, and a $500 tuition credit will continue to be available to students in Wisconsin for providing COVID-19 vaccinations. The grant team will continue supporting partner organizations in their vaccination efforts. For example, UW–Madison students have provided vaccination to children in collaboration with the Madison Metropolitan School District, supervised by regular clinical faculty.
Lasting Impact
The success of this project has led to strengthened and new partnerships among many organizations such as public health departments, healthcare centers, schools, tribal health organizations, and other organizations involved in the state’s vaccination efforts, as well as prepared students for their career as nurses. The BNCoVED project also provided an opportunity to showcase the strengths of the many faculty and students in the UW System to the people of Wisconsin, and to provide faculty and students with rich, meaningful opportunities to contribute to Wisconsin’s public health pandemic response. The BNCoVED experience helped prepare students for their work as nurses, and many of the students who assisted in vaccine administration in the spring of 2021 provide ongoing care to hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the fall and beyond. The positive collaborative experience shared among the schools and those involved in the project will encourage ongoing and future collaborations.