The University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing has received
a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services to expand a masters degree program that prepares nurses
as leaders. The grant makes it possible for any nurse in Nebraska to earn
a degree at home through computer technology and emphasizes recruiting
students from rural areas and those from diverse backgrounds.
Innovative features of the grant will help overcome some of the obstacles
that prevent nurses from earning higher degrees, including time and distance
barriers.
The three masters degrees available through the grant are: community
health nursing; nursing administration; and nursing informatics. The programs
prepare nurses to work in partnership with health facilities or community
organizations to help identify a community’s priority health needs, who
can impact health policy, recommend priority health programs, and support
partnerships to develop programs and services.
Students enrolled in the program can earn the degree in their home using
a combination of coursework on the Internet, desktop videoconferencing,
e-mail, interactive television, and audio conferences. The technology will
allow students to take tests, do presentations, and participate in discussions
with students and professors without going to campus. One of 24 students
currently enrolled part-time in the program is Rebecca Davis.
This degree will enhance my ability to provide nursing leadership and
skills in community health, as well as attain my goal of an advanced practice
degree, said Davis, who works at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital in Hastings.
Obtaining this degree is different because I wont have to attend class
at UNMC. I enjoy the freedom to access my `learning space at my convenience
in my own home.
The knowledge and skills graduates will bring to Nebraska communities
are critical to addressing Nebraskas health challenges, say UNMC College
of Nursing faculty members Bevely Hays, Ph.D., and Donna Westmoreland,
Ph.D., co?project directors of the grant.
Nebraska communities are in need of health-care professionals with
these skills,” said Dr. Hays, director of the curriculum project and UNMC
associate professor of nursing.
One of the goals of the grant is to recruit nurses from rural areas
and also those from culturally-diverse backgrounds who intend to practice
in rural, medically underserved communities. The curriculum also will stress
cultural competency knowledge for faculty and students, and introduce minority
and disadvantaged youth to nursing as a potential career. Cultural competency
gives students knowledge to deliver care with the patients cultural values,
beliefs and practices in mind.
Nancy Hudson, vice president of nursing at the Great Plains Regional
Medical Center in North Platte said she currently employs one nurse informatics
specialist and hopes to hire another in March. Online documentation of
patient care has become increasingly important, she said. Theres a need
for tailoring computerized systems that enable health providers to get
the right information when they need it, as well as enable them to make
decisions on a care plan for the patient. It benefits the patient because
they dont have to repeat health information over and over.
Dr. Hays said during the next three years, she wants to recruit, enroll
and retain 67 new graduate students in the program. Twenty-three students
across Nebraska currently are enrolled under the new grant. The program
can take two years to complete on a full-time basis or three and a half
to four years part-time.
Dr. Hays said programs like this are helpful to Nebraskas health care
delivery systems which are being stressed by a number of factors, including:
the farm crisis which has increased the number of uninsured; increasing
ethnic diversity, particularly around meatpacking plants relocating from
Omaha to rural areas; increasing elderly population with chronic health
problems; substantial shifts in patterns of rural health care funding;
and increasing demands to use data and deliver the health care needed by
rural Nebraskans.
In Nebraska, changes in reimbursement guidelines have resulted in both
demands and opportunities in health care, said Dr. Westmoreland. In order
to maintain financial solvency, both community-based and traditional health
facilities must alter their operations, form new and unfamiliar coalitions
and revise their services to meet health needs. Nurse leadership is needed
to ensure that patient needs are met as delivery systems change.
The title of the grant is Community Health Nursing, Nursing Administration
and Nursing Informatics Distributive Education for Rural Nurses. It is
an expansion of a grant for the Health Systems Nurse Specialist masters
degree program which began in 1996.
For more information about the program, call (402) 559-6375 or bhays@unmc.edu
or go to: www.unmc.edu/HSNS/ for information about the program.
The following is a list of the students, by hometown, enrolled in the
program under the new grant:
BEATRICE — Patricia Hortman
FREMONT — Georgia Felt
HASTINGS Rebecca Davis
HOOPER — Jane Langemeier
LINCOLN — Todd Berger, Sally Frohn, Angela Herbert, Kristin Kreikemeier,
Sarah Orth, Sherry Reilly and Heidi Widicker
MILBURN — Teresa Patrick
NORTH PLATTE — Jean Carstensen, Nancy Hudson and Shirleen Smith
OMAHA — Bryan Gall, Teresa Kalkowski, Eileen Keenan, Sharon Kochanowicz,
Rebecca Lehn, and Ward Siert
ST. LIBORY — Betty Elder
WEST POINT — Alice Kindschuh