Roughly 900 nurses descended on MinneapolisâÄô downtown Hilton this weekend to collaborate on research and appoint a University of Minnesota faculty member as their president. The weekendâÄôs honors were twofold for the School of Nursing, as Dr. Jean Wyman was inducted as the societyâÄôs president Sunday afternoon and the school played host to the annual conference for the Midwest Nursing Research Society âÄî the largest nursing research society in the country. School of Nursing Dean Connie Delaney said she felt privileged to have the chance to showcase MinnesotaâÄôs strong research programs, especially as the school celebrates its centennial anniversary. Delaney said Wyman is a great choice as the head of the research society because she does both basic lab research and research on effective care delivery. âÄúShe knows what itâÄôs like to discover, as well as take those discoveries to the bedside,âÄù she said. Wyman said, âÄúMNRS is a really exciting place to be because the mission is to advance the scientific basis of nursing practice so that people can have better health outcomes and better lives.âÄù WymanâÄôs own recent research has been focused on helping to improve the quality of life for elderly women. In a recent study, she found that elderly women fell 35 percent less over two years if a nurse visited their home and discussed safety, while making some simple changes to the home, like putting nightlights in the bathroom. Wyman said MNRS will be making a big push to create a network of discovery and needs to do a better job of reaching out to build relationships with more nurses and faculty colleagues in the next few years. The conference itself is where a lot of relationships and collaborative efforts are born. Over the course of three days, hundreds of nurses presented their research to other nurses interested in their specialties. Nursing research is varied and presentations Saturday included exercise programs for inner-city women, prevention of infection from intravenous lines and electronic health care records. Ann Olson, a nurse practitioner for more than 20 years who recently received her doctorate in nursing from the University of Arizona College of Nursing , said presenting her research at the conference will hopefully lead to collaboration with other nurses in the future. She said collaboration would give her the chance to expand her small study on more effective methods for delivering bone density information to women in her hometown of Winona, Minn., into something with wider implications.