Mary Ellen
LaSala,
PhD, RN
Director of Special Projects
Stony Brook University
Dr. Mary Ellen LaSala is a nurse educator, clinician, and researcher with expertise in nursing education and leadership. She has held key roles, including Director of Special Projects at Stony Brook University and Inaugural Chair of Undergraduate Nursing at Hofstra University. Her work focuses on improving health outcomes for vulnerable populations through innovative education and community-based initiatives. A strong advocate for at-risk groups, she has developed programs for pregnant adolescents and promoted equitable access to care. Dr. LaSala actively supports student success and professional growth through mentorship and evidence-based educational strategies.
Presenting at the Nexus Summit:
This lightning talk will describe the design, implementation and evaluation of an interprofessional (IP) practice-education partnership in public libraries known as the Stony Brook Medicine Healthy Libraries Program (HeLP). HeLP is an experiential IPE program in which teams of nursing, public health, social work, and physician assistant students and faculty collaborate to provide evidence-based health information, blood pressure screening and link library patrons to care. The team promotes access to preventive healthcare as part of a competency-based learning experience in 15 suburban public…