Biography

Dr. Elizabeth Beam is an Associate Professor at the UNMC College of Nursing. She has worked on an emergency preparedness grant at the College of Nursing since 2005. In that role, she became involved in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit and was the educator for the unit in 2014 when Ebola Virus Disease was treated in the United States. Beth worked with that team to create and publish the personal protective equipment ensemble used by the care team at Nebraska for this Category A illness. Dr. Beam has gone on to do further research on healthcare worker behaviors and respiratory protection including recent intervention studies.

Research

Research Interests

• Educational technology
• Human behavior in infection control training

Grant Support (Previous 5 years)

July 2023-June 2025
Prototyping of a ruggedized powered air purifying respirator (PAPR) for healthcare use in austere conditions , $71,122, Beam, E (P.I.)

July 2023-June 2024
Beam Helmet: Human Factors and clinical usability testing of a head-mounted, flip-up powered air purifying respirator (PAPR) Prototype, $20,000, Beam, E (P.I.)

August 2021-Sep 2022
Educational Strategy Assessment for Improving Respiratory Protection Equipment Use, NSRI IRAD, $25,000, Beam, E (P.I.)

April 2018-May 2020
Investigating donning and doffing behaviors of healthcare workers for N95 respirators, UNMC CON Research Grant, $10,000, Beam, E (P.I.)

2018 – Present
Healthcare and Emergency Responder Organization Education through Simulation (HEROES) project, University of Nebraska Programs of Excellence, Beam, E (P.I.)

Publications

Beam, E.L. (2021). Letter to the Editor. Respiratory protection for health professions students must be addressed in light of lessons from the coronavirus disease (2019) COVID – 19 pandemic. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, available online 2021. https://doi.org/10.1017/ice.2021.375

Herstein, J. J., Abdoulaye, A. A., Jelden, K. C., Le, A. B., Beam, E. L., Gibbs, S. G. et al. (2021). A pilot study of core body temperatures in healthcare workers wearing personal protective equipment in a high-level isolation unit. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Hygiene, published online 12 August 2021.

Smith, C. J., Matthias, T., Beam, E., Wampler, K., Pounds, L., Nickol, D., Shope, R.J., Carlson, K., & Michael, K. M. (2020). A mixed-methods evaluation of medical residents’ attitudes towards interprofessional learning and stereotypes following sonography student-led point-of-care ultrasound training. Journal of General Internal Medicine 35(10), 3081-3086. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-020-06105-5

Beam, E. L., Herstein, J. J., Kupzyk, K. K., & Gibbs, S. G. (2020). A simulation approach to measure critical safety behaviors when evaluating training methods for respirator education in healthcare workers. American Journal of Infection Control,48, 869-874. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2020.05.005 This article was the topic of a podcast from the AJIC website. LINK: https://www.infectionpreventionspotlight.com/rbif-27 [infectionpreventionspotlight.com]

Gibbs, S. G., Herstein, J. J., Le, A. B., Beam, E. L., Cieslak, T. J., Lawler, J. V., Santarpia, J. L., Stentz, T. L., Kopocis-Herstein, K. R., Achutan, C., Carter, G. W., & J. J. Lowe. (2019). Review of literature for air medical evacuation high-level containment transport. Air Medical Journal,38(5), 359-365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amj.2019.06.006

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Service

Gamma Pi At-Large Sigma Chapter, Publicity Chair, 2011 - present.

UNMC Incident Command Team, Planning Section, 2019 - present.

Academies Collaborative, Steering Committee Member, 2021 – 2023 term.

Recognition

Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America William Rutala Scholarship 2020

UNMC Academic Affairs Interprofessional Education Scholar Award 2019

State of Nebraska Admiral in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska 2015