Open Diary - sandrapayne

Master s degree program to bolster Peninsula nurse

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

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.

New nursing home means 200 jobs

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

VERONA (WKOW) -- A new nursing home project in Verona will mean 200 construction jobs for the area.

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk was at the Badger Prairie Health Care Center this afternoon. She announced the county will be accepting bids for the project starting on March 16. The project will cost $22 million.

"While it was already very important for us to be building a new facility, given that this will bring up to 200 good paying jobs for the next year and a half, the timing of this, I think, is very helpful for the entire community," Falk said.

Falk said the current facility in Verona is outdated, specifically in terms of energy efficiency. The new building will incorporate cutting edge green technology.

She said "We're doing something that isn't very normal and that is using geothermal technology to help fuel both cool and warm this new facility and we are very excited about that."

Falk explained that senior citizens are the fasted growing segment in southern Wisconsin's population. Even though there are other new facilities in the area, the one in Verona will fill a specific need.

"We take here patients that no one else will take. They are high need, special need, high risk, particularly challenging patients. If there were other nursing homes that were able to take these we would not be needing these kinds of facilities, but there is no one else," she explained.

The facility should be open by the end of 2010. It will be staffed by current Badger Prairie Health Care Center workers and will not require any additional hires.

Anger over costly projects as nursing home is set

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

As residents of the nursing home operated by the Motion Picture & Television Fund are being forced to find new facilities, their family members are outraged that the fund's board previously authorized expensive new executive offices and other construction projects, including a state-of-the-art gym and aquatic center, at a time of deepening financial woes.

The concerns have come to light in recent days as residents' families have pressed management at the fund to explain its decision to shut down the hospital and nursing care facility in Woodland Hills, ordering the relocation of about 100 elderly residents to retirement homes around Los Angeles.

Family members believe that closing the facility by the end of the year violates the implicit promise the fund made to care for infirm entertainment industry workers, many of whom have been traumatized by the news.

"My father is in complete denial," said Brandy Alexander-Kern. She moved her 87-year-old father, a retired stage manager and director, into the home only a few months ago. "He keeps looking at me and asking me, 'You're not going to let them take me out of here are you?' " she said.

Fanning the flames is disclosure that the fund's chief executive received a 41% pay raise from 2005 to 2007, a period when the fund acknowledged its growing financial problems with the hospital and nursing home. The facilities for the last several years have generated an annual deficit of $10 million, which the fund said imperiled the future of its finances.

Fund officials reject the criticism and say that the building projects and executive compensation levels are separate and did not draw upon or affect resources dedicated to the operation of the hospital and nursing home.

"If we didn't do this now, the entire endowment would have been wiped out in four to five years," said Frank Mancuso, who heads the fund's corporate board.

But some family members believe that the fund's board has misplaced its priorities, leading it to emphasize bricks-and-mortar projects at the expense of fundamental care to those most in need.

"They were pouring all this money into creating a super-luxurious gym and health center and very opulent administration offices at a time when money was needed to sustain the nursing home and hospital," said Richard Stellar, a marketing communications consultant whose 91-year-old mother is in the motion picture home.

Stellar and other family members say they are skeptical that the fund is confronted with a financial crisis. The fund's tax filing for 2007, the latest available, shows that the overall organization had a surplus of $10 million, down from $17 million in 2006. In the same period, the fund's net assets grew to $133.8 million from $118.6 million, according to the tax return.

David Tillman, chief executive of the fund, said the fund's surplus masked underlying losses at the long-term care facility.

The bleak financial picture of the fund was underlined in a report to the board in October by consulting firm Camden Group, which warned it was not generating enough revenue to cover a growing shortfall that would exceed $20 million in 2008.

"Despite significant financial improvements made over the past few years, these underlying costs will continue to increase, and the ability to generate additional income is extremely limited," the firm's report said. "As a result, the current losses will grow in future years."

The report attributed losses largely to the fact that government insurance reimbursements have not kept pace with rising medical costs, which has resulted in many hospital closures in California in recent years.

About 85% of the home's patients are covered through Medi-Cal, the state's healthcare program for the poor.

"This has been one of those horrible Solomon's choices," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of the foundation's fundraising board and chief executive of DreamWorks Animation. "This is a place I adopted and care deeply about. . . . I can't sit on the watch as the ship goes down and do nothing about it," he said of the fund's financial position.

Such explanations, however, have done little to quell an uproar among many of the residents and their families, who, in a long shot bid to keep the facility open, have hired the high-profile litigation firm of Girardi & Keese to fight the board's decision.

Although the fund has vowed to help place residents in other facilities and expand home-based services, many family members dispute the organization's claims that they will be able to find comparable care elsewhere.

Family members recently wrote a letter to board members, urging them to reconsider.

"Common sense dictates that some residents will die from shock, sadness, depression and a lack of continuity in medical treatment," the letter said. "We believe that you need to look beyond the numbers to the human lives that are being affected today and will be affected in the future."

Nursing Program Offered To Those With Degree

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Local health professionals estimate there are 250 to 300 nursing vacancies in El Paso alone, and that number is expected to increase as more nurses reach retirement age.

In hopes of combating the shortage, Texas Tech University is now offering the Second Degree Nursing Program. Students can enroll in the program if they have a college degree and become a nurse in 12 months. The first class on board the accelerated program in the El Paso campus started Jan. 5.Wednesday, KFOX followed new student Catherine Hood around Thomason Hospital's Emergency Room as she took patient vital signs.

Hood said she never thought she'd go into nursing. She graduated college several years ago with a political science degree, and her plans included going to law school.

However, personal reasons kept Hood from pursing that dream, and when she heard of the new nursing program at Texas Tech University she thought it would be a good career opportunity."Texas Tech said, 'Yeah, we'll take you.' So, I got excited and got into the program. (I'm looking forward to being able to) actually help somebody, face to face, one on one," said Hood.Hood is one of 10 students enrolled in the program.

Lectures are offered online by faculty in the Lubbock campus. In El Paso, the faculty consists of a Master of Science in Nursing and a Bachelors of Science in Nursing.

"It's a 12-month consecutive program. It's for individuals who already hold a bachelors degree in anything, and have the prerequisites, which are two semesters of anatomy, one of microbiology, growth and development, and food and nutrition," said Dr. Josefina Lujan, regional dean for Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Anita Thigpen Perry School of Nursing.

Other admission requirements include a 3.0 GPA or higher on prerequisites, pathophysiology, microbiology, anatomy, and physiology, and must commit without employment during the program.

Each student is assigned to an experienced nurse who coaches that student in the emergency room, intensive care unit, and medical surgical throughout the year.

Students receive hands-on experience twice a week during two 12-hour shifts at Thomason Hospital."(It’s great because) here's a book, and then you go and do it hands on.

I'm hoping by the end of the year I can do this on my own, and not have to worry about her (my mentor) being at my side, that way I can help a put a greater impact on my community as a nurse," said Hood.

Students take several standardized exams throughout the year. Once they’re done with the program, students must pass the NCLEX Exam to become a registered nurse.

The current class is expected to graduate at the end of December. Thomason Hospital donated about $25 million to help start the program and offer scholarships to students.

Lujan said starting pay for nurses is about $24 an hour, plus a sign-on bonus with most hospitals. Aside from the national nursing shortage, Lujan said there is a dire need for more Hispanic nurses, or those who are bilingual.

Budget Cuts Threaten Arizona Nursing Programs

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Despite a mounting need for nurses across Arizona, proposed plans to slash higher education budgets could force many of the state's universities to downsize their nursing programs, the East Valley Tribune reports. According to the Tribune, nursing programs in Arizona are particularly expensive because state law requires schools to have one professor for every 10 nursing students. By contrast, other educational programs can have as many as 20 to 30 students per professor.

To offset the proposed budget cuts, Arizona State University, which runs the state's largest nursing program, has already announced it will cut 80 spots from its incoming nursing class, reversing progress over the last five years to expand the program by 40%. Meanwhile, officials at Northern Arizona University are exploring ways to make budget cuts without lowering enrollment.

To ensure a continuous supply of new nursing talent, the state's private and community colleges are expected to begin filling the enrollment gap. Many hospitals and health systems also are pressing forward with efforts to expand the nursing pipeline. Scottsdale Healthcare, for example, collaborated with Scottsdale Community College to allow students to gain clinical training at the system's hospitals. In addition, Banner Health has partnered with five local community colleges in Maricopa County to launch a nursing fellowship program that pays for students' education in exchange for a three-year work commitment.