Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Program Update

In an effort to keep you updated regarding changes occurring in your Health Administration Program, we will be sending you periodic updates. This note includes information about:

* Role Reversal
* Tell a Friend
* HA Blog

Role Reversal
On October 1st, John Pratt, Health Administration Program Director and Twila Weiszbrod, Assistant Program Director, will be exchanging roles. John has been the driving force behind our programs for many years. Twila fell in love with SJC when she was here as a student in 2000, returned as a faculty member in 2003 and became Assistant Program Director last year. John now sees an opportunity to focus his energy more on the long-term care arena and to have more flexibility with his time as he begins looking toward retirement sometime in the future. In this spirit John will become the Assistant Program Director/Long-Term Care Coordinator and Twila will assume the role of Program Director. While this is a big change, both of us are excited about it! With John still actively involved, you will not see major changes in the programs, but you will see continuity, continued quality and – given Twila’s creativity and energy – ongoing improvements.

Tell a Friend
We recently had an accreditation site visit. The only recommendation from our visitors is that we need to do more to get the word out about our excellent programs! We are hoping you can help us with that!! We have long known that our own students and alumni are our best ambassadors. If you know of anyone who would benefit from a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in health administration, a Bachelor’s degree in long-term care administration or radiologic science, or certificates and individual courses in these areas, please pass the following information on to them:

Saint Joseph’s College of Maine offers courses and degree programs in health administration, long-term care administration and radiologic science that combine the education you need to move your career forward with the flexibility to fit within your job and family commitments! The online format allows you to work on your courses at your own pace from anywhere in the world and the courses are grounded in real-world experience. Expand your career options!! Check out their web site at http://www.sjcme.edu/gps/index.htm, or contact the College directly at info@sjcme.edu

Other Suggestions
We value your opinions in these and other areas and would welcome any ideas or suggestions you have for making our HA programs the very best possible. Feel free to contact either of us by replying to this email.


John R. Pratt and Twila Weiszbrod
Health Administration Programs

Monday, September 17, 2007

Health Care Administration Program Advisory Committee

We are very pleased to announce that Keith Baldwin is now a member of our Health Care Administration Program Advisory Committee! Keith brings a vast amount and quality of experience in the acute health care field and his oversight will be an asset to our programs.

Keith has most recently been acting as the Interim VP Medical Staff Relations for Empire Health Services at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane, WA. He previously held positions of COO Valley Hospital and Medical Center and VP of Physician Relations at Empire Health Services two hospitals. Keith developed a consulting firm in the fall of 2006 and continues to work with Perspectives Imaging, a firm that provides Mobile Imaging solutions for hospitals and physician groups, through his consulting firm. Prior to developing the consulting firm, he was the CEO at Samaritan Healthcare in Moses Lake, WA, for eleven and a half years.

Monday, September 10, 2007

NAB Accreditation Visit

A site visit team from the National Association of Boards of Examiners for Long-Term Care Administrators (NAB) was on-campus on Tuesday, September 5th and Wednesday, September 6th relative to accreditation of our Long-Term Care Administration (LTCA) and Master of Health Administration (MHA) programs. Accreditation is for five years. The LTCA has been accredited twice before and is seeking reaccreditation while the MHA is seeking first-time accreditation following curriculum changes to make it eligible.

The National Association of Boards of Examiners for Long-Term Care Administrators (NAB) is an organization made up of representatives of the individual state (and District of Columbia) nursing home administrator licensing boards. All states license nursing home administrators and a growing number also license assisted living administrators. NAB’s mission is “To enhance the effectiveness of state boards of long term care administrators in meeting their statutory and regulatory duties and responsibilities to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.”

One of the ways NAB fulfills its mission is by accrediting college and university long-term care administration programs to assure that those programs are preparing their graduates properly. SJC is the only currently-accredited program that is nontraditional in its delivery mode. NAB has only recently begun accrediting graduate programs. Our MHA will be the second graduate program accredited by NAB and SJC will be the first college to have both undergraduate and graduate programs accredited at the same time.

The SJC accreditation/reaccreditation will be formerly voted on at the NAB Mid-Year Meeting in November. However, the members of the site visit team were glowing in their praise of our programs and assured us we would have no problems getting approval at that time.

We would like to thank all who participated in the site visit andits preparation. One very valuable benefit of accreditation visits such as this is making us realize just how good we are, and that's to the credit of all of you.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Advisory Committee Meeting

The Health Administration Program Advisory Committee (HAPAC) met via teleconference on August 28th. The discussion was primarily focused on the role of the committee, how involved they will be and the National Accreditation Board of Long-Term Care Administrators (NAB) accreditation visit at SJC next week. The committee will continue to meet at least quarterly, with relevant information disseminated to them routinely between meetings. It was also announced that we would like to have a hospital administer and home care administrator on the committee if anyone knows of a likely candidate that would be interested. Unfortunately Judy Tarr has had to resign from the committee at this time due to changes in her career. The HAPAC members will also be meeting with the NAB accreditors next week when they are on site.