Defense Date

7-16-2021

Graduation Date

Summer 8-7-2021

Submission Type

DNP Manuscript

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Department

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Program

School

School of Nursing

Faculty Mentor

Mary Catherine Loughran

Keywords

COVID, University, Campus, College, COVID-19, SARS, Coronavirus

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic began in China in December 2019, and continued to spread globally throughout the following months. The impact of the virus led to Universities nationwide closing their campuses. Strategic COVID-19 master plans were created to ensure that students, faculty, and staff could return to a safe environment for the fall semester. The role of University Student Health Services (SHS) departments became critical.

The SHS team incorporated telemedicine visits along with new policies, procedures, protocols, and guidelines to maximize the safety of the students, faculty, and staff upon their return to campus. This program evaluation focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the master plan for COVID-19 to mitigate its spread on campus as well as identifying recommendations for improvement. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed that the policies, procedures, protocols, and guidelines implemented by SHS did mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus on campus. The telemedicine protocol did facilitate medical evaluation of students and mitigated the risk of viral transmission in the clinic. Significant strengths of the master plan for COVID-19 on campus allowed the University to meet their goal to remain open to Thanksgiving Break. Weaknesses were identified indicating that more investigation is needed on mitigation efforts specific to college and university settings, in addition to improved emergency communication techniques to address students, parents, faculty and staff.

Language

English

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Included in

Nursing Commons

COinS