VCU School of Nursing targets public health nurses for RN-BS Weekend Program
The last ten years have seen a shift in the role of public health in Virginia. There has been an increased focus on assessment, assurance and policy development and a decrease in the direct care provided by local health departments. The Virginia State Department of Health (VDH) has reported an increased need for nurses who are prepared to provide population focused care. VDH offers training for its current employees to increase their skills in epidemiology, community assessment and diagnosis, and policy development. They require new employees to have these skills, but have had difficulty finding a qualified applicant pool. According to the former State Public Health Nursing Director, “over 50 percent of the existing workforce is associate degree or diploma prepared and has not had any formal education in public health science. This is of grave concern as we move into population-based services, where nurses must work with primary and secondary sources of data, mobilize community partnerships and monitor trends.‿ (Karen Connelly, personal communication, November 12, 2004)
Virginia’s shift to population-focused public health services, along with the increasing diversity of the state’s population, is necessitating a public health workforce more highly skilled in community and population-based practice. Baccalaureate education at VCU includes community and public health nursing content. Indeed, the community health content is a key difference between BS education and AD and diploma educations. All BS students take a community and public health nursing course (NURS415) that employs an epidemiological approach to population-focused nursing through community assessment and evaluation of the effects of contemporary issues and health policy on the public’s health. Many of the current public health nurses received more traditional public health clinical training, including home visits and individual direct care provision, and they are unfamiliar with models of population-focused care required in current public health practice. VCU School of Nursing’s RN to BS Weekend Program, which has been in existence for seventeen years, offers nurses who work full-time the option of completing their BS in Nursing on weekends over three to nine semesters, full- or part-time. By promoting this program to public health nurses, we can increase the number of well-qualified public health nurses in the workforce in Virginia, and help to retain these nurses in the public health workforce by improving preparation, job performance and satisfaction.
This innovative program allows Registered Nurses without a bachelor’s degree in nursing to obtain a BS in nursing in as few as three semesters. With classes just one weekend a month, and with locations across Virginia or online, the RN-BS Weekend Program accommodates nurses who are already working full-time.
Associate Professor Martha Moon, Ph.D., who directs the RN-BS Weekend Program, says, “This grant-funded initiative can improve healthcare across Virginia by helping nurses in demand acquire the capabilities to assume expanded roles and responsibilities.‿
For more information on the VCU RN-BS Weekend Program, please contact Millie Flinn, Hispanic Coordinator, at 804.828.5181 or flinnml@vcu.edu.