Monday, February 25, 2008

New Web Pages

After seemingly endless effort and time spent by a lot of people, the GPS web site has been upgraded. Many thanks to Colleen Cunningham of GPS and Brent Wooten and Travis Soule of the SJC marketing department for getting this done so well.

The URL hasn't changed. It's still www.sjcme.edu/gps. Take a look at it . We think you'll like the changes. It is much more attractive and easy to navigate. We would also appreciate any feedback.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Managing the Business of Healthcare

Saint Joseph’s College of Maine is pleased to announce our first annual
Symposium for Health Administration Professionals.

Managing the Business of Healthcare

The last fifty years have been a period of dynamic growth, evolution and change perception and roles of healthcare. The reality is that, in order to be successful two important facts needs to be understood and accepted: (1) healthcare is a business and should be managed as a business; and (2) there is an emerging trend of patients transforming themselves into consumers of healthcare. Through a series of workshops, special, focused topics relevant to these two concepts will be discussed under the guidance of experts in the field.

JOIN US!
Students, graduates, and anyone else interested in the business of health care administration is welcome to attend. The dates of the symposium are Tuesday, July 15th through Saturday, July 19th. The sessions will be scheduled for three hours each in the morning and afternoon each of those days.

The general learning objectives are to equip participants to:

1. Better understand human behavior in organizations.
2. Apply ethical principles to real health care situations.
3. Prepare your organization for providing health care to the baby boomers.
4. Employ new leadership models as organization culture changes.
5. Analyze changing health care trends and service delivery models.
6. Construct positive physician/hospital relationships.
7. Build and manage effective interdisciplinary teams.
8. Prepare your organization for disaster and/or pandemic events.
9. Identify relevant constructs for applying health information system technology in LTC systems.
10. Discuss the differing administrative needs of nursing directors and health care administrators.
For more information, please visit our web site:

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Press Release

For Immediate Release:
Standish, Maine
January 8, 2008

Saint Joseph’s College Of Maine
Long-Term Care Administration Programs Accredited

Two programs at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine have been granted accreditation by the National Association of Boards of Examiners of Long-Term Care Administrators NAB). The undergraduate Long-Term Care Administration (LTCA) program, which had been accredited twice before, received an additional five-year accreditation, while the Master of Health Administration (MHA) program received initial accreditation. Only a select group of such programs has been accredited to date, and the Saint Joseph’s programs are the only accredited ones delivered through distance education. Also, Saint Joseph’s College is the only institution with both undergraduate and graduate programs accredited by NAB.
“The accreditation provides national recognition of our programs’ quality and means that many state nursing home administrator licensing boards will automatically accept the Saint Joseph’s programs as meeting their licensure requirements,” said John Pratt, Director of the Long-Term Care Management Institute at Saint Joseph’s.
“It shows that we have met stringent criteria for top quality education and training of long-term care administrators,” he added. “To achieve it, we had to provide a great deal of information about our curriculum, faculty, and students, culminating in a two-day site visit last June,” Pratt stated.
The accreditation site team called the programs “excellent” and particularly noted the excellence of the faculty, quality of the curriculum, state-of-the art online technology, and the programs’ advisory board. They called the programs “important for the profession” and “an excellent model for distance education programs to follow.”
The college’s Division of Graduate and Professional Studies offers a bachelor’s degree program in long-term care administration with specialty tracks in nursing home administration and assisted living administration, a certificate program in long-term care administration and a Master’s degree in health administration as well as unrelated degrees.

For more information, visit www.sjcme.edu/gps.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

MHA Graduate, Virginia Lipke, Receives International Award

APIC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Denise Graham, Vice President, Public Policy—(202) 454-2617 dgraham@apic.org

FORT THOMAS, KY—A St. Luke’s Hospital infection control practitioner whose successful efforts to initiate a program whereby inpatients receive influenza and/or pneumococcal vaccines has earned her the prestigious international title of “2007APIC Hero of Infection Prevention.”
Virginia “Ginny” Lipke, RN, BS, ACRN, CIC, Infection Control Practitioner for both St. Luke’s east and west hospitals, has been named December’s Hero by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), an 11,000 member international association headquartered in Washington, DC. The “Heroes” program recognizes those who have contributed significantly to the reduction of infection and who are impacting the health, safety and well-being of patients, healthcare workers and the public. Lipke, a Cincinnati resident, launched a personal campaign to implement a series of infection prevention programs, including a policy whereby hospitalized patients are approached by a nurse and asked if they would be interested in either a flu or pneumonia vaccine, or both. Prior to Lipke’s initiation of this program, no policy along these lines existed at St. Luke’s Hospital. Today, this is a standing order to both screen and administer vaccines if patients so choose, without need for a physician order, making The St. Luke’s hospitals the first among Cincinnati and/or northern Kentucky hospitals to implement this program.
As a result, between 96%-98% of qualified patients are being screened and vaccinated; a figure that was as low as 10% less than three years ago.
“Our goal is to have 100% of our patients asked if they want either vaccine, once it’s determined they’re eligible,” said Lipke.
In addition to this successful program, Lipke has also authored the oral care component of St. Luke’s ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) bundle program.
“This is a very important program,” said Lipke. “Bacteria from the mouth can drain into a patient’s system and easily set up a case of pneumonia. We added oral care for our patients every four hours to our bundle.”
The program resulted in no new cases of ventilator-associated pneumonias reported during a 19-month period, which has become a hospital record. For the past 34 months, none of the patients who have occupied the 29 combined Intensive Care Unit beds within St. Luke’s two hospitals have had a VAP.
“One of the keys to our success—besides oral care—is because we do in-services every six months and oral care has become standard for ICU patients,” said Lipke.
Lipke also created a policy for rapid HIV testing for mothers with no prenatal care, making St. Luke’s the first in the region to offer such testing. While the HIV rate is relatively low in northern Kentucky, Lipke said, “I felt it should still be offered as a tool for pregnant women with no prenatal history. “If we can get anti-viruals to women during labor, there’s a good chance the baby will be born negative from these diseases.”
She has also started an early sexually transmitted disease treatment program within the hospital’s Emergency Department, which includes free STD medication from the state and the Centers for Disease Control. This comes in response to increases in area cases of Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.
Lipke has been a registered nurse since 1994 and an Infection Control Professional since 1999. For many years prior, she was a licensed practical nurse.
She is among 12 other healthcare professionals to be honored this year through APIC’s highly-successful “Heroes of Infection Prevention” program, funded through a grant from Tyco Healthcare/Kendall, makers of DoverTM urological and AMDTM wound care products.
APIC’s mission is to improve health and patient safety by reducing risks of infection and other adverse outcomes. The Association’s more than 11,000 members have primary responsibility for infection prevention, control and hospital epidemiology in health care settings around the globe. APIC advances its mission through education, research, collaboration, practice guidance, public policy and credentialing. Visit APIC online at https://mail.apic.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://mail.apic.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.apic.org/

Friday, October 19, 2007

MHA Student Authors Article

Betty MacLaughlin Frandsen, a graduate of GPS and a current student in the MHA program, recently wrote an article for ECPN magazine and they published it as the cover story in the October issue. You can access the article at the following web site http://www.extendedcarenews.com/. The title is A" View from the Other Side. What the Administrator Needs from a Director of Nursing."

Betty is the administrator of the Bridgewater Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, a 331-bed skilled nursing facility (Binghamton, NY). She was a director of nursing (DON) for 14 years and served for two years as President of the National Association of Directors of Nursing Administration in Long-Term Care (NADONA/LTC) and five years as its Legislative Coordinator to Washington, DC.

Our congratulations to Betty. Well-done.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Radiologic Science Program

While our Bachelor Science, Radiolgic Science Major (BS/RS) has been quite successful, we are making some changes to make it even more so.

BS Major Name Change:

Students enrolling in the BS/RS have already completed their clinical work, coming with either an Associate's Degree or certification in radiology. Thus, to more accurately reflect what the major provides, we will be changing the name to Radiological Science Administration.

New Associate's Degree:

We are in process of creating a new Associate of Science, Radiologic Science Administration Major (AS/RSA). It will offer students from hospital-based certificate programs an opportunity to acquire an Associate's Degree and move smoothly into the Bachelor's Degree.

General Studies Courses:

New requirements by the Joint Review Committee in Radiologic Technology (JRCRT) require that certificate programs provide at least twelve semester hours of general education courses (humanities, sciences, etc.). We are contacting all of the accredited certificate programs in the U.S. letting them know that we can provide those courses to their students online.

All of these changes will improve our service to the radiologic technology community and will give us a significant marketing boost. We'll keep you posted on the results.

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.