The Yale School of Nursing has received a $3.9 million grant — the largest in the school’s history — from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a study assessing nurses’ electrocardiogram monitoring skills. Nursing School professor Marjorie Funk and her co-investigator, University of California–San Francisco School of Nursing professor Barbara Drew, will carry out a clinical trial at 16 hospitals over five years in order to identify techniques to improve nurses’ heart monitoring skills and to create an interactive online teaching tool for them. YSN Dean Margaret Grey said that because nurses will be able to immediately access the program once it is released, the study will circumvent the eight- to ten-year lag characteristic of many studies between the release of research findings and their implementation. Said Funk: “We expect that improved ECG monitoring will result in more accurate diagnosis and more timely treatment, which may lead to better outcomes for patients.”