Joan Meunier-Sham, MS, RN | 2024 National Crime Victims' Service Awards

JOAN MEUNIER-SHAM: One in four women have been sexually assaulted, and yet only about 25% of hospitals have SANE programs. There's a huge need here to teach people how to do this in a trauma-informed way. 

When we decided to do teleSANE, our National Telemedicine Center, we wanted to do it very thoughtfully and very intentionally, because this has never been done before. In our pilot, we needed to be working nationally, serving underserved populations. 

When we bring on a new site, we do two- to three-hour training with some nurses at that hospital. If they have a lot of experience, then we will be an extra set of ears, an extra set of eyes in the room. If they have not cared for a patient before, we tell them that we will meet them where they are and where the patient is, we will support them in whatever way they need. 

Our patients' safety, their confidentiality and privacy, is utmost in our mind. We will let them know we're the only one in the room and that nothing is ever recorded. 

Like our in-person program, we also wanted to involve rape crisis. So, rape crisis is called into the hospital so they are on site with the patient. We're working together as a team, and the patient is part of that team. 

As a state, we are on a path to 100% of hospitals, and teleSANE was pivotal in our ability to do that. 97% of our patients now accept this service, and we have cared for 903 patients. 

We've been working with the International Association of Forensic Nurses to develop their own teleSANE programs. They are serving a hundred hospitals that never had SANE services before, and they're replicating our model. It's really the basis and essence of nursing care.

You have to get it right. And so we work really hard to get it right.