Angelite Nurses

from Oakland Tribune .. 

By Neil Gonzales 

San Francisco State has teamed up with Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City and other medical centers to help working nurses earn master's degrees and boost their skills. 

The effort funded by a $450,486 grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation builds on San Francisco State's existing master's program with Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto. 

That program divides class time between clinical experience at a hospital and administration courses at San Francisco State, the university said. Most of the nurses currently in the program are from Stanford and the children's hospital. 

The latest project will provide other nurses on the Peninsula "educational opportunities nearer their homes and work," said Shirley Girouard, director of the School of Nursing at San Francisco State. 

The expanded program invites nurses from Sequoia, Mills- Peninsula in Burlingame and other hospitals to apply for classes to be held in Palo Alto and San Francisco State starting in the fall. The program takes four semesters to complete. 

About 40 participants will be admitted each semester, Girouard said. They will "become advanced practice nurses" and have the ability to serve in various skilled roles such as an administrator, researcher and teacher. 

The project moves "the location of graduate education up closer to nurses who might be seeking graduate education," said Linda Kresge, chief nurse executive at Sequoia. "The university is partnering with hospitals so that we might identify registered nurses who are prepared at the baccalaureate level (and) interested in seeking graduate education or a master's degree." 

The effort also involves doing a "feasibility study to assess demand for masters-prepared nurses in the Bay Area," Girouard said. 

An advisory committee of medical professionals from Sequoia, Stanford, El Camino Hospital in Mountain View and elsewhere will help oversee the study, San Francisco State officials said. 

"There is a need for these types of nurses because they provide a different, higher level" approach in addressing health-care quality, safety and patient satisfaction, said Amy Nichols, associate professor of nursing at SF State. 

Advanced practice nurses are in short supply, especially in the area of nursing administration and training -- partly because many in the field don't want to quit their job to return to school for a master's degree, Nichols added. 

So a master's program "needs to be convenient and feasible and work with their professional lives so they can take classes," she said. 

Staff writer Neil Gonzales covers education. He can be reached at 650-348-4338 or ngonzales@bayareanewsgroup.com. 

(c) 2009 Oakland Tribune. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

A service of YellowBrix, Inc. 

By Madel R. Sabater
Former Health Secretary Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan has urged the government to ensure a win-win bilateral agreement with countries who take interest in hiring Filipino health professionals.

In his keynote speech during the 27th anniversary of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD-DoST), Tan said there is a need for international support for ethical framework of recruitment, citing the high demand for Filipino nurses abroad.

“There should be win-win bilateral agreements to ensure an ethical recruitment (of Filipino health professionals),” he said.

This, Tan said, may be done by having a trust fund for health human resource development by the importing country.

“(The Philippine government) is forging now a joint or multi-country research data and action program on health human resource development among importing and exporting countries,” Tan said.

“This year, we hope to establish a Philippines-Canada, Philippines-Finland, and Philippines-Bahrain trust fund for human resource development,” he said, adding that these countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Philippine government as equity partners in International Health Care in 2007 to 2008.

Tan lamented that in Central Luzon alone, there are three towns in Bulacan and two in Pampanga that do not have a doctor. He added that in a visit to Samar, he found that some hospitals have already closed down due to lack of doctors in the area.

“Migration has moved to greater heights. This year, 50,000 nurses are predicted to migrate out of the country,” he said.

In the country’s agreement with Canada’s Saskatchewan province and Finland, Tan said for every 10 nurses, the importing country has agreed to improve the nursing center and for one Filipino nurse hired, three more nurses will be educated. Joint researches, linkages and graduate scholarships with their universities for improved research were also included in the agreement.

BACOLOD CITY -- West Negros University (WNU) does its best to improve the quality of education of their valued-WESNECANS.


It will incorporate Virtual Integrated Teaching and Laboratory (VITAL) in its curriculum for the Nursing Course.

VITAL has been introduced by Health Care Advantage Institute which is intended for Nurses and Allied Healthcare professionals and undergraduates.

Mr. Armand Del Rosario, President of Health Care Institute has introduced VITAL to WNU and they agreed to include this to the Nursing curriculum of the university.

Through this VITAL, a virtual simulation-based training will be made available to WNU Nursing students.

The global trend among health care institutions including the Philippines is to adapt an approach to patients which is based on international standards. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) is the leading accreditation body of health care organization within the United States. Joint Commission International Accreditation (JCIA), a division of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO), is the largest accrediting body for health care organizations outside the U.S.A. Both bodies mandate that staff of JCAHO and JCIA accredited institutions be intelligent on their standards and practice in caring for their patients. To achieve optimal performance, the professional must be possessing impeccable cognitive, technical and behavioral skills of this international-based standards and practice.

Health Care Advantage Institute has comprehensive training curricula which incorporate simulation-based training on human performance in both basic and high- risk domains with the standard and practice of the JCIA as its framework. It focuses on improving quality health care delivery and ensuring a safe environment for patients and staff through knowledge and skills-based competencies. 

Participants carry out and exponentially refine their skills using the facility’s state-of-the-art equipments and lifelike mannequins. 

The constructive environment allows the learners to work at their own pace in convincingly replicated clinical settings without undue pressure from multiple factors like fear of committing errors from lack of knowledge and mastery of skills. “As you make a journey to perfection, HCAI’s team of dedicated and competent instructors and staff will guide you every step of the way. HCAI is the gateway to global competitiveness. Take the Nursing profession to the next level.”

Dr. Helen Villarico-Correa, WNU Acting Dean of the College of Nursing and Allied Health Services, said that this will advance the teaching methods and fast track strategies in coordination with HCAI which will assist future nurses through the actual hands-on on the state-of-the-art facilities. She initiated the latest Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities Commission on Accreditation (PACUCOA) visit to upgrade the quality of nursing education of the university.

Mr. Jay Reuben A. Delfin, WNU Skills Laboratory Supervisor is an Expat with a mission. He worked as a nurse in the United States with concentration in real-time hospital equipment. His broad experience in different modern machines and instrumentations made him a much valued resource person in the hospitals of El Paso, Texas. With the dawn of the high technology-driven hospital facilities during the early 1980’s, he was already at the forefront of operating the said equipments in Texas’ Providence Memorial Hospital.

Moreover, this is this first university in Western Visayas to have VITAL in its curriculum including the state-of-the-art equipment now at WNU, said Mr. Del Rosario.

This is a step in the right direction for WNU, said Dr. Correa.