Connie W. Delaney, professor and Dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota and an honorary doctor at the University of Iceland, has established a fund at the University of Minnesota. The aim of the fund is to support collaborative innovation in information technology within health care between the University of Minnesota’s School of Nursing and UI’s Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery. Delaney visited Iceland last week and presented the fund to representatives from UI, including the Rector.
The fund will be a part of the University of Minnesota‘s grants and funds and is called University of Iceland-University of Minnesota Nursing Innovation Fund. The fund is based on decades of Delaney’s collaboration with Icelandic scientists and health care workers at the University of Iceland and Landspitali University Hospital. It’s safe to assume that Delaney has had a significant impact on the development of nursing and health sciences in Iceland. She taught courses on information technology in nursing at the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery for years, and has supported the increased use of information technology within health care in Iceland. Additionally, she has collaborated extensively with Ásta Thoroddsen, professor emerita in nursing, on research, as well as with many more scientists at the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, and has been an honorary doctor at the Faculty since 2011.
Delaney is a highly influential scientist who has been a global leader in implementing information technology and digital tools in education, research, and the field of nursing and other health sciences. Her pioneering work extends to collecting coded data from electronic health records, which led to the development and implementation of the Nursing Management Minimum Data Set (NMMDS) worldwide. Furthermore, she has served as an advisor to the American government on these matters, for example during Barack Obama’s presidency. For her groundbreaking work the American Academy of Nursing names Delaney a 'Living Legend' in 2025.
The fund that Delaney is overseeing the establishment of is intended to further support progress in the aforementioned areas. It will facilitate collaborative projects between the University of Iceland and the University of Minnesota to advance the innovation of information and communication technologies in nursing and health sciences more broadly. At the same time, it will strengthen the cooperation between the two universities. The University of Minnesota was the first international university with which the University of Iceland signed a bilateral agreement nearly 45 years ago.
Delaney visited Iceland last week and met with representatives of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery and with Silja Bára R. Ómarsdóttir, the Rector of UI, where she presented the fund. She also met with students and teachers from the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery participating in a collaborative course between UI and the University of Minnesota on leadership in nursing.
