UTICA - Seventeen nurses from nursing facilities across New York State have completed the Foundation for Quality Care's Nurse Educator Course, an exclusive leadership program for nurses in senior management roles who aspire to become or remain leaders in the long-term care profession.
Terry Anderson, RN and nurse educator at Lutheran Home and Rehab Center in Jamestown was one of the nurses.
The Nurse Educator Course is part of the Long Term Care Leadership Institute, which was developed by the Foundation for Quality Care, a non-profit research and educational foundation affiliated with the New York State Health Facilities Association. The innovative program, funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration Nurse Education, Practice & Retention Program and the New York State Department of Health's grant program, the Health Workforce Retraining Initiative, provides college-level credits through the State University of New York Institute of Technology's (SUNYIT) School of Nursing and Health Systems in Utica. It is also approved by the New York State Department of Health as a work instructor program for registered nurses who provide the nursing assistant certificate course.
"No one is more important to the delivery of quality care than nurses and nurse leaders. We need to do everything we can to support them," said Richard J. Herrick, president of the New York State Health Facilities Association and the Foundation for Quality Care. "Programs such as these are critical to the long-term success of skilled nursing facilities in New York State."
The Long Term Care Leadership Program was designed to provide nursing leaders with an ongoing educational and peer networking program that promotes personal development, core competencies and best practices in the role of long-term care nursing.
"The Institute is even more critical in these times of staffing shortages and increased quality of care and financial pressures in the long-term care profession," said Richard Patterson, executive director of the Foundation for Quality Care. "This program trains the next generation of nurse leaders to care for New York's most frail populations."