Executive Committee
Helen K. Burns, PhD, RN
Associate Dean for Clinical Education
Helen Burns is an associate professor in the Department of Community Health Systems and is the Associate Dean for Clinical Education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. She provides oversight for academic affairs related to curricular enhancement and innovative program development for the Baccalaureate and Master’s level programs and the clinical doctorate program. Administratively she is responsible for Distance Education, the Center for Innovation in Clinical Learning, and the Continuing Education program.
Dr. Burns brings a background of experience as a clinician, educator, and administrator in acute care community hospitals, academic healthcare and public health. Prior to joining the University, Dr. Burns served as Deputy Secretary for Health Planning and Assessment for the Pennsylvania Department of Health where she was instrumental in the development of the State Health Improvement Plan and provided oversight of the Commonwealth’s interdepartmental initiative for healthcare workforce planning and the survey research of Pennsylvania’s licensed nurse population. She currently holds an appointment to the DHHS National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice.
Lisa Marie Bernardo, PhD, MPH, RN
Director of Continuing Education
Dr. Bernardo is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing as well as the Director of Continuing Education. She has been on faculty since 1996. Dr. Bernardo brings a strong background of experience as a clinician and educator to the ELITE Program. She currently serves as primary instructor for NUR-1281 Foundations of Professional Nursing Practice; NUR-1070 Introduction to Nursing Science; and NUR-1765, Risk Factors and Health. She is an academic advisor to undergraduate students. She serves as the Coordinator of the School Nurse Certification Program and the Fitness Minor.
Dr. Bernardo serves on numerous School and University committees, including Secretary of the University Senate and the University of Pittsburgh Pediatric IRB. As a faculty member on the non-tenure stream, her practice focuses on health promotion at the community and individual level. She is active in disaster and emergency preparedness as well as fitness for special populations.
Scott Coulson, MBA
Associate Director of The CICL, University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing
Scott acts as the Learning Technologies Coordinator for ELITE, and is the Associate Director for the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing Center for Innovation in Clinical Learning. In this capacity, he works with many faculty in developing course material for use in technology-rich environments utilizing such technologies as distance education, in-class student response systems, CD-ROMS, interactive television, desktop video and database backed Web-based instruction.
Karen L. Courtney, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor
My area of research interest is broadly defined as health systems research. I am interested in how place or location can affect health outcomes on both an individual level and a population level. Some of my past research at an individual level has looked at how privacy in residential care facilities can affect an older adult’s decision to adopt information-based assistive technologies. On a population level, my research has examined nursing workforce distribution and community health outcomes.
My clinical background has been in outpatient care including family practice and adult and pediatric urology. While a triage nurse in family practice, I became interested in decision support for outpatient settings and returned to school for my MSN in administration and nursing informatics. I have recently completed a pre-doctoral National Library of Medicine Informatics Research fellowship at the University of Missouri – Columbia.
Rosemary Hoffmann, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor
My primary interest lies in advanced medical/surgical nursing with an emphasis in critical care and transplantation. I have been a faculty member since 1995 and currently the primary teacher for the undergraduate Transition into Professional Nursing course. In this capacity, I place students throughout Western Pennsylvania and other states for a precepted clinical experience. I am also one of the faculty members for the Fast Track Back Re-Entry into Practice for the returning RN. I received the Provost’s Innovation in Teaching Award that helped to incorporate High Fidelity Human Simulated technology into the undergraduate curriculum. This technology is also a major theme with the Fast Track Back program. Currently, I am the SON representative to develop strategies for interprofessional healthteam education within schools of the health sciences. I received the Distinguish Clinical Scholar’s award in 2007 to develop strategies with the SON for interprofessional education. I have lectured locally, nationally and internationally on innovative teaching strategies, including high fidelity human simulation.
John O'Donnell, MSN, RN
Director, University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing Nurse Anesthesia Program
John O'Donnell is currently Director of the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing Nurse Anesthesia Program. He has been active in human simulation education since 1994 and is the Associate Director for Nursing Simulation at the Winter Institute for Simulation, Education and Research or WISER. In addition John is a doctoral candidate in Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
O’Donnell consults in the area of technology applications, human simulation, patient safety, program development and as an expert in anesthesia and nursing care. He instructs students of all levels from hospital based AD programs to PhD students in nursing as well as students in the Schools of Dental Medicine and Graduate School of Public Health. He is charged with developing simulation programs for the > 5000 practicing nurses in the 19 hospitals of the UPMC health system. Finally, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the national Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF).
Areas of scholarly and research interest include hierarchical task analysis methods in simulation, multidisciplinary simulation interventions supported by web based curriculum, case-based education al programs for anesthesia providers and nurses, and epidemiology related to patient and provider safety.
Samuel Donovan, PhD
Assistant Director of the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium, Beloit College
Samuel Donovan will oversee the ELITE project evaluation and assessments of program impacts. Dr. Donovan is the Assistant Director of the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium at Beloit College. He has a MS in Biology from the University of Oregon and received his PhD in Science Education from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Donovan has extensive experience in educational research, program evaluation, undergraduate science education reform, and the use of technology in education. He is the Director of the BEDROCK Bioinformatics Education Project (NSF–Division of Undergraduate Education Grant) a professional development program that has been delivered nationally to over 500 undergraduate biology and computer science faculty. He also has research experience in nursing and science education using a variety of qualitative and quantitative methodologies for program evaluation and assessment of learning outcomes.
Paul E. Phrampus, MD, FACEP
Director, Peter M. Winter Center for Simulation, Education and Research (WISER)
Dr. Paul E. Phrampus is the Director at the Peter M. Winter Center for Simulation, Education and Research. He received a B.S. in Biology from Old Dominion University and an M.D. from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. He is a board certified Emergency Physician who completed residency training at the University of Pittsburgh where he now holds an appointment of Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine.
Dr. Phrampus has been very active in patient safety efforts in airway management and led a team to create an airway algorithm and an accompanying difficult airway management simulation course specific to the practice of emergency medicine. This course has now been completed by the entire emergency medicine faculty staff of the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. This course will soon be deployed across the emergency departments of the universities 19 hospital system.
Dr. Phrampus has an extensive background in Emergency Medical Services and serves as an active EMS medical director. He has deployed simulation technology for both testing as well as competency assessment measures in EMS services in Southwestern Pennsylvania. He co-authored a simulation course for flight crew training for Stat Medevac, which operates 16 helicopters, multiple fixed wing aircraft and employs over 200 crew members, flying over 10,000 missions per year.
He has been active in education for many years and was recently awarded the faculty excellence award by the University of Pittsburgh Emergency Medicine Residency. He is a frequent lecturer on various topics in medicine. His interests in education include the implementation of technology into the world of education to increase the efficiency of learning and developing models of cognitive decision making assessments. He has many years of experience with computer system and electronics gained from his years of service in the United States Navy.
Benjamin W. Berg, MD
Director of Simulation at the University of Hawaii
Benjamin W Berg, Clinical Professor of Medicine, was born in London UK, and received his M.D. degree from the Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed Internal Medicine residency followed by a Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellowship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington DC. He is board certified in these specialties. Dr. Berg retired from the US Army in 2005. He served as the Internal Medicine Residency Director, Chairman of the Institutional Review Board, and as the Director of Graduate Medical Education at Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu HI. Dr. Berg has conducted multiple clinical telemedicine and distance learning programs and now holds an appointment as the Director of Simulation at the Telehealth Research Institute, University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine. His primary research interests include active work in advanced telemedicine for intensive care unit patients, simulation based medical education, and distance learning using simulation and advanced technologies. He currently directs or participates in over $5M DOD funded research programs in telehealth and simulation based medical training.
Barbara R. Demuth, MSN, RN
Director of Telehealth CERMUSA, Saint Francis University
Barbara Demuth has served as the Assistant Director for Telehealth for The Center of Excellence for Remote and Medically Under-Served Areas (CERMUSA) at Saint Francis University since 1998. During this time period, Barbara has successfully directed the development and implementation of CERMUSA's entire Telehealth program while providing assistance in the establishment of healthcare oriented distance learning projects. Throughout her employment with CERMUSA, she has supervised both the initial creation and the continuous progression of numerous research protocols. Her nursing background includes experience in acute care, long term care, education, administration, quality assurance, and as a nurse practitioner. Ms. Demuth earned her Master of Science in Nursing from Pennsylvania State University and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from West Virginia Wesleyan College.
Lisa Hardman, DNP, RN, CDE
Assistant Professor, West Virginia University School of Nursing School of Nursing
Lisa Hardman is an Assistant Professor in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program at West Virginia University School of Nursing. She has been active in education technology since 2002.
Dr. Hardman has been instrumental in the implementation of a hospital intranet based “virtual inservice” to provide daily around the clock education offerings for a multidisciplinary team of health care providers. Dr. Hardman is also proficient with video development software and has utilized this technology to develop hospital specific education videos for staff development. She has also been involved in teaching in synchronous and asynchronous online classrooms and the teaching and implementation of hospital wide electronic data and barcode medication administration projects.
Areas of scholarly inquiry include chronic disease, diabetes, ostomy care and Appalachian culture.