MultiCare expands SANE training for nurses who treat victims of sexual assault

MultiCare is establishing a training program for its Washington nurses on how best to treat victims of sexual assault.

Through the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner model, the new program will provide 40 hours of training to 300 nurses across the state, including approximately 100 MultiCare nurses in the Inland Northwest. An expansion of existing training, many MultiCare nurses now only receive two to four hours of training.

Approximately 30 MultiCare nurses in the Inland Northwest have received the SANE 40-hour training. Providence has 24 SANE-trained providers between emergency departments at Holy Family Hospital and Sacred Heart Medical Center, plus eight SANE members in its Children’s Hospital Pediatric Emergency Department.

The SANE training expansion is funded by a $1.5 million grant from Health Resources & Services Administration of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Interim project director and local MultiCare nurse Jennifer Cantrell said the new training will ensure “survivors are supported immediately and compassionately” in MultiCare emergency departments.

“These are nurses who’ve received additional training to be able to not only provide medical care to a patient, but also on the neurobiology of trauma,” she said. “Making sure that patient is leaving the emergency department feeling like they have control back over their body.”

The training also teaches nurses how to conduct and collect proper evidence and documentation that can later be used in prosecution of the perpetrators of sexual assault – as well as how to testify in court when called.

Since 2015, Washington state has required these forensic exam kits collected by nurses to be tested. In November last year, Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced a backlog of at least 10,000 sexual assault kits had been cleared. The testing led to at least 21 prosecutions, including seven in Eastern Washington.

The grant will also cover the cost of upgrading forensic equipment and adding the capability for forensic photography at MultiCare Deaconess and 15 other emergency departments across the state.

Nurses will be trained on how to perform this forensic photography and keep a chain of custody on sensitive photos so they cannot be seen outside of those who may prosecute the case.

“Injuries help to paint the picture of what has occurred or what this patient has been through,” Cantrell said.

An even higher level of training, the project will add 15 SANE-certified nurses to the state’s workforce by the end of the three-year project period. There are less than 40 SANE-certified nurses statewide, including two nurses at Providence Sacred Heart and two MultiCare nurses in the region.

The 40-hour trainings will be taught four times a year in Eastern Washington.

An additional 16-hour advanced, in-person clinical course with simulated and live gynecological training aids is also available. The free courses will also be open to nurses outside MultiCare – meant to extend the project’s reach to additional rural and medically underserved areas.

“Developing SANE competency among our nurses, with consistent protocols and expectations across our statewide health system, will improve quality of care and help us deepen our support for a vulnerable population,” said June Altaras, MultiCare executive vice president and chief nursing officer.

Cantrell encouraged victims of sexual assault to come to the hospital to receive treatment.

“There are people out there that care, that understand, that want to help,” she said. “You don’t have to know what you need to do.

“You just need to know that the first step is coming into the hospital and just being brave enough to say something’s happened to me and it’s not OK and I need help.”