2024 State Council Innovative Project Award

Gives state councils the opportunity to be recognized for innovative ideas and projects that support one of the pillars of ENA’s strategic plan.

In 2023, the North Carolina ENA State Council implemented its first global health initiative, called ENCare, to provide a service opportunity for emergency nurses to work collaboratively with

 international partners and to impact health care inequity. Fourteen volunteers, including emergency nurses across six states, traveled to the Dominican Republic for eight days to provide direct patient care, deliver education and improve health care infrastructure. In partnership with volunteer Dominican providers, the team organized four medical clinics to treat more than 500 patients, including approximately 60 people at a center for the blind, a population that has extremely limited access to health care given the country’s lack of access standards for people with disabilities.

Throughout the experience, team leaders arranged respite time so the team could decompress from the emotional aspect of the extreme poverty as well as allowing time for engagement with the local leaders and health care institutions.

Volunteers provided health care education on topics including water sanitation, disease prevention and wound care. Additionally, volunteers worked together on improvements to a permanent clinic structure that included building a serenity garden for patients. North Carolina ENA has taken the steps to make this an enduring program expanding the group in 2024.