Nursing Innovations

Jeremy Craig

Georgia State University will offer a new track in its master’s degree program in nursing, preparing nurses to lead in nursing administration or the growing field of nursing informatics.

The Nursing Leadership in Health Care Innovations track begins this fall in the Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing at Georgia State’s College of Health and Human Sciences. The 36-credit-hour course of study will be offered on both a full-time and part-time basis.

The new track helps fill needs expressed by health care leaders in metro Atlanta for nurses who can understand both the clinical and administrative sides of health care.

“What our clinical partners, including hospitals, industry and other care providers, have told us is that they need nurses who not only understand nursing care, but who also have a grasp of some of the concepts of finance and technology,” said Barbara Woodring, director of the School of Nursing.

Students in the Web-enhanced program — requiring only one on-campus class meeting per month — will take a core group of classes preparing nurses for advanced roles in clinical environments, and will have the option of concentrations in either nursing administration or health informatics.

Nursing administration courses will focus on how to lead within a health care system, as well as how to comply with legal regulations, how to work with accreditation bodies, and how to write and administer budgets.

Students and graduates of the program will also tackle some of the most pressing challenges caused by the increasingly technical nature of patient care, including health information systems and technology.

A major component of President Obama’s proposed health care reforms is the implementation of electronic medical records systems nationwide. Such systems are already in use at many health care facilities, but many of them — even within the same hospital — often don’t communicate with one another.

One example Woodring cites is that of a hospital where the emergency room records system cannot communicate with a system in the rest of the hospital — requiring staffers to re-enter information from one system into another.

“We plan to learn from these challenges, so that our student knows where to troubleshoot and know how to evaluate systems important to patient care in a complex technological environment,” Woodring added.

Students in the program will be required to complete a practicum with health care providers or industry, as well as a project focused on solving a problem in administration or informatics. Graduates will also be eligible to take credentialing exams for their fields.

For more about nursing at Georgia State, visit http://chhs.gsu.edu/nursing.