Thursday, December 26, 2024
12/26/2024
Washington State University, through the office of Native American Health Sciences and the Center of Native American Health, is aligned to develop the nation’s first Indigenous Health Simulation Center (IHSC). The primary goal of this center is the acquisition of simulation equipment and establishment of the infrastructure needed to support in-person and online education modalities to promote capacity building, strengthen the knowledge and skillsets of current and future providers, and foster collaboration with providers in support of transformation toward health equity for the region’s Indigenous populations and end health disparities often driven by health systems. This project requires facility construction and renovation of an existing building wing and rooftop located on the WSU Health Sciences campus located in Spokane, Washington. The building wing will require renovation to develop clinical and medical educational exam and hospital rooms, Indigenous traditional healing modality teaching, briefing, and debriefing spaces, instructional office spaces, traditional medicine and storage space, plant space, and traditional plant development, harvesting, and making spaces, both fixed and moveable medical equipment and simulation equipment, mannequins, and simulations trainers. The rooftop will require a new rooftop membrane lining and pavers, along with traditional medicine growing planters, moveable furniture, lighting, and gathering features for community. Our Indigenous Healer Cohort, made up of Indigenous physicians, nurses, pharmacists, behavioral health specialists, clinicians, and community members who specialize in traditional plant medicines and well-being, need multiple teaching spaces, technologies, and modalities from both western and traditional spectrums to teach from holistic perspectives within the IHSC. These knowledge keepers provide parallel knowledge and skillsets between western and traditional medicine to current and futu re healthcare workforce learners on ways that prevent unintended harms to Indigenous patients. The IHSC will be a training and educational center meant to reduce patient harms and end health system disparities, increase the confidence, cultural knowledge, and skillsets of providers and healthcare workforce, and provide voice of Indigenous patients and the healthcare workforce through holistic health response of our people. As a training and educational site, this center will also be a research site whereby learner outcomes, standardized patients, and instructor impacts, will be studied. It is also a goal to complete a study of patients served by those who have been educated in the IHSC or through certification workshops.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).