08/21/2026
Today, ENA is with Sheridan Miyamoto, PhD, FNP, RN, FAAN, and the team behind the Sexual Assault Forensic Examination-Telehealth (SAFE-T) System, which helps ensure rural and underserved communities across Pennsylvania, Indiana and Idaho have access to compassionate, high-quality sexual assault examinations.
Miyamoto, who began working as a SANE and tele-SANE in the late 1990s, founded the SAFE-T System in 2017 as a research initiative at Penn State University. Since then, the program has become a key partner to hospitals and clinics working to grow and stabilize their forensic nursing pipeline. The specialty, Miyamoto noted, has a two-year retention rate of 7%.
“We have these horrific statistics that show we train SANEs, and two years later, they’re not practicing anymore,” Miyamoto said. “We need more things that keep people who are good at this connected to it.”
Part of that work involves inviting nurses from partner sites to participate in photo reviews — which count toward a forensic nurse’s experience — and a journal club that examines forensic nursing research. They also work to help hospitals and clinics overcome the biggest challenge to forensic nursing: widespread underfunding.
The SAFE-T System, which relies on grant funding, helps hospitals bear those costs by providing technological resources, including an app that makes taking and storing high-resolution photos easy and secure. The technology also allows experienced tele-SANEs to assist forensic nurses before, during and after a forensic examination.
“We can start people out with telehealth, we can train their people, we can get them up and running,” Miyamoto said. “And if they have high enough volume, maybe they don’t need us anymore. That’s a win.”
