Donna is a Registered Nurse with a Certificate in Diabetes Education.

Nursing Career

Clinically, Donna has done bedside nursing, community nursing, and most extensively, an educator role through her nursing career.

Research Experience

Donna contracted with WESTARC Group Inc. from the years 1992 through 2000. WESTARC was the applied research arm of Brandon University.  Donna acted as an independent contractor and oversaw numerous projects during that time, including:

• Several projects with First Nations communities including a qualitative study that examined the impact of dialysis on one First Nation community and an evaluation of a health unit that had transferred control (from Federal government to band);
• A project with Emergency Preparedness Canada examining First Nation response to emergencies;
• A health needs assessment for Marquette health region (co-coordinated with a coordinator from Marquette);
• An evaluation project with the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba; and
• Assistant Coordinator of the Westman Integrated Strategy for Health Project (pre health regionalization project).

From 2000 to 2009, Donna worked as a Diabetes Educator with the Regional Health Authority. During this time, she acted as co-principal investigator for two research projects:

• Rural diabetes education: Does it make a difference? -A cross-sectional study to evaluate outcomes of diabetes education, care, and support provided at 2 clinics in rural Manitoba, Canada; and
• Evaluation of non-attendees of the diabetes education centre – A cross sectional descriptive study of the characteristics of attendees and non-attendees of a diabetes clinic.

In 2009, Donna once again began to independently contract for research projects. She was awarded or hired on for the following projects:

• First Nations, Inuit and Aboriginal Health, Health Canada (June –November 2009) Awarded through a RFP process.
  • Title of Project: Physical Activity Resources for First Nation, Inuit and Métis
  • Role: Coordination of project including development of workplan; consultation with key informants; creation of criteria to measure effectiveness of resources as well as scoring of resources and development of final report.
• Senior Regional Policy and Planning Advisor for the Public Health Agency of Canada (January – March, 2010)
  • Title of Project: Thematic Scan of Healthy and Unhealthy Weights – Manitoba
  • Role: Developed a report that outlined current healthy weight policies/strategies across Canada, listed the programs and services within Manitoba, identified key challenges to addressing healthy weights in Manitoba and identified the possible opportunities that exist within Manitoba for the Public Health Agency of Canada (Manitoba/Saskatchewan Region) to make a contribution to healthy weights.
• Department of Health and Healthy Living, Manitoba Health (Sept 2010 – Jan 2011).
  • Title of Project: Competency Package Update and Content Development to support a Chronic Disease Complication Screen
  • Role: revise competency document and develop further competencies to encompass the chronic diseases of vascular disease, renal disease and diabetes.
• Department of Health and Healthy Living, Manitoba Health (July 2011- March 2012)
  • Title of Project: Excellent Chronic Disease Management –Identifying System, Organizational and Practice Standards and Supports for Primary Care Settings
  • Role: This project required the development of standards for chronic care in a primary care setting based on a literature review and an environmental scan.
• Brandon University (August 15, 2012 – February 28, 2013)
  • Title of Project: Living with Dementia: The Experiences of Older Couples in Managing their Lives Together
  • Role: reviewed and analysed transcripts of key informant interviews with couples living in the community who have had one person diagnosed with dementia.
• Brandon University (May 1, 2012 – March 31, 2014)
  • Title of Project: Rural Post-Secondary Students Collaborate to Improve the Health of their Campus Communities
  • Role: coordination of a Canadian Institute of Health Research project awarded to several professors from Brandon University.

Publications

Temple, B., & Epp, D. (2009). Evaluation of a diabetes education program’s non-attendees: The program response. Canadian Diabetes Journal. 33(4): p 375-380

Bowman, A., & Epp, D. (2005) Rural diabetes education: Does it make a difference? Canadian Journal of Nursing Research. 37 (1, March).

Ryan-Nichols, K, & Epp, D. (1999) Community health institute; Building capacity through professional development. Nursscene. 24(5); p 36-37 &40.

Epp, D., Haque, C. E., & Peers, B. (1998) Emergency preparedness and first nation communities in Manitoba, Retrieved from http://www.publications.gc.ca/site/archivee-archived.html?url=http://www.publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/D82-52-1998E.pdf

Awards

Canadian Nurses Foundation – Helen Glass Scholarship – $5,000 – 2016

Trinity Western University Master of Science in Nursing Achievement Award – $2000

Foundation of Registered Nurses of Manitoba Graduate Award – $3,000.00 -2015

Eli Lilly graduate scholarship – $5,000.00 – 2015

PEO Program for continuing education award – $3600.00 – 2014

Kerry Pearlman Inspirational award – in partnership with my husband-2013

Volunteer of the Year – Manitoba/Saskatchewan Branch of the Canadian Diabetes Association – 2009

Being There conference scholarship award- Canadian Diabetes Association -2008