Ashley Harkrider, PhD, professor and chair of UT Health Science Center’s Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology in Knoxville, has plans to take audiology, speech language pathology, and social work services on the road.
A UT Grand Challenge Grant will help her do that.
A major initiative of the UT System, the Grand Challenge Grants are designed to connect partners across the UT System to address three major areas of need, or Grand Challenges, in Tennessee. The challenge areas are advancing K-12 education, strengthening rural communities, and overcoming addiction.
When the 2024 UT Grand Challenge Grants were announced recently, faculty and staff from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center showed their collaborative spirit and their dedication to addressing Tennessee’s pressing health problems.
Among the 2024 grants, 20 UT Health Science Center faculty and staff members were included as partners in nine Type 1 grants. These grants of up to $100,000 per project help fund work on education, rural health, and addiction research.
A total of 27 Type 1 proposals were funded amounting to $2.6 million.
Additionally, 13 UT Health Science Center faculty are partners in five of the nine proposals selected to compete for larger Type 2 Grants. These projects will participate in a pitch competition later this year for up to $500,000 in funding per project.
“Our plan is that we are going to purchase a van that is going to allow us to take, qualified personnel, equipment, and materials out into rural areas of East Tennessee in particular, where we can treat people who have the need for audiology, speech language pathology, and social work services but not the ability to get to the cities for the health care and expertise that they need,” Dr. Harkrider said.
“We’ve called our model MITS, which is our Mobile Interprofessional Tandem Service model,” she said. “We’ve partnered with the UT Knoxville College of Social Work, and we’ll be taking social work students, as well as our own students and audiology and speech pathology faculty members to these rural areas to work with school systems, senior centers, and other community centers to provide this comprehensive professional care.”
Dr. Harkrider said the team hopes to have the audiology and speech pathology van up and running by January and ready to provide services to rural patients several times a week.
“We saw this Grand Challenge Grant as a real opportunity to strengthen the ties between our two universities, UT Knoxville and UT Health Science Center,” Dr. Harkrider said. “It is also an opportunity to continue to emphasize in our profession the importance of interprofessional care to our students and give them real live opportunities to work with patients while working together understanding what each profession’s scope of practice is and how they can work together to really improve the quality of care and likelihood of success for our patients.”
“UT Health Science Center’s partnerships across the state as part of the Grand Challenge program highlight how unlimited our potential is when we bring together clinicians, scientists, educators, and others to improve the health of Tennesseans.”
Jessica Snowden, MD
Bruce Keisling, PhD, executive director of the Center on Developmental Disabilities at UT Health Science Center, is a partner in two Type 1 grants addressing education. One project will work with partners from the Hamilton County Schools, UT Knoxville, UT Martin, and other entities to assist neurodivergent students to successfully transition from high school to college and beyond. Dr. Keisling is also part of a second Type 1 grant with UT Chattanooga, UT Martin, UT Knoxville, and external partners including the Chattanooga Theatre Centre to help neurodivergent teens and young adults navigate social interactions through role play, simulations, and workshops.
Addressing the Grand Challenge of overcoming addiction, Lisa Beasley, DNP, from the College of Nursing, along with partners from UT Knoxville and external entities, will create an online course on addiction tailored to treating patients in underserved rural communities that will be used to train and prepare professionals working in these communities.
Another mobile health delivery model advanced to the competition for a Type 2 grant. Ansley Stanfill, PhD, RN, associate dean of Research, and Alisa Haushalter, DNP, RN, associate professor, both from the College of Nursing, are part of a project that if funded, will go on the road with three One UT-branded rural health units—launching from UT Health Science Center, UT Martin, and UT Southern—to provide outreach, education, and training to the community and the health care workforce. The nursing-led initiative will engage with UT Extension Offices, community members, and external stakeholders to develop educational opportunities to address the needs of rural counties.
“UT Health Science Center’s partnerships across the state as part of the Grand Challenge program highlight how unlimited our potential is when we bring together clinicians, scientists, educators, and others to improve the health of Tennesseans,” said Jessica Snowden, MD, vice chancellor for Research at UT Health Science Center. “Each of the projects represents important solutions for our communities regarding education, rural health, and addiction. This program is a model for our continued growth at UT Health Science Center by leaning into team science, collaboration, and partnerships that bring our excellence to bear in new spaces.”
Read more about all 2024 UT Grand Challenge Grants, including those involving faculty and staff from UT Health Science Center, here.