Nurses guide 2014

GU ID E

2014 A n A d v e r t i s i n g S u p p l e m e n t To T h e

Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014 1

NOW HIRING EXPERIENCED NURSES at Arkansas Children’s Hospital

Are you an experienced nurse interested in caring for children but aren’t sure where to begin? We offer individualized orientation for positions in a variety of settings, age groups and diagnoses. Let us help you get started on a new professional journey in pediatric nursing that promises to be challenging, yet rewarding and fun!

JOIN OUR TEAM AS AN EXPERIENCED NURSE IN THE FOLLOWING DEPARTMENTS: • • •

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Emergency Department Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

Call ACH Nurse Recruitment at 501-364-1398 to discuss your options.

Apply online at archildrens.org/dreamjobs. | Healing is in our nature.®

A Career in Nursing can be a Career for Life I choose to study at Baptist Health because... the unmatched

I chose to work at Baptist Health because... what I do daily

level of clinical experiences, the focus on faith and the reputation of Baptist Health graduates.

changes lives and truly has an impact on those I care for. I know my salary will be competitive within the market and the system provides me with great benefits.

There are so many opportunities to work in diverse areas of care — from critical to surgical.

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BHSLR-Schools of Allied Health are licensed by the Arkansas State Board of Private Career Education. BHSLR-Schools of Nursing are licensed by the Arkansas State Board of Nursing.

Competitive Salaries • Life Changing Care Diverse Work Areas

For more information or to apply visit baptist-health.com

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MEET THE

S CH OO L S

RECRUITERS

Recruiters at colleges and universities guide prospective students to help them achieve success while attending school and also to have that success translate to the job market. Recruiters for some of the most popular nursing programs in the state tell what they offer and more.

COURTNEY PRATT, AREANA LOPEZ, SAMANTHA HUGGINS & ELI FUENTEZ Recruiters Arkansas Tech University

At Arkansas Tech, we believe nursing is a caring relationship that facilitates health and healing.

JENN MCDANNOLD Enrollment Coordinator Baptist Health Schools Little Rock

Healthcare professionals in today’s world must be wellrounded individuals with a commitment to personal and professional excellence. The ideal healthcare professional has strong critical thinking skills and enjoys continued learning and growth. The individual has a personal belief in citizenship and makes healthy, responsible decisions about their lifestyle. Ultimately, being a healthcare professional is about caring for people, sometimes on their worst day.

The ideal healthcare professional finds self-worth and joy in caring for others and making a positive impact in a patient’s life.

OSMONETTA MCRAE-BEARD Director of Recruitment University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Nursing

College recruitment starts early. My mission as the recruiter is to serve as the primary point of contact and to provide educational presentations at various events around Arkansas and the surrounding areas. My purpose is to assist prospective students with the admissions process and make them better prepared and more competitive when it is time to apply to UAMS CON. If anyone is interested please feel free to contact us at 501.686.5224 or by email at conadmissions @uams.edu.

KELLY BROSNAN, LEE ANN LOONE Y, DEBOR AH HENDERSON, ELIZABETH MCKINLEY Academic Counselors Eleanor Mann School of Nursing, University of Arkansas

Nursing program advisers assist you in navigating the path of prerequisite courses leading to admission to the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing. We are here to assist, guide, encourage and direct students. We care about our students and want them to be competitive for the program. Today’s complex patient needs require a nurse with a strong science background, excellent psychomotor skills, critical thinking ability as well as exemplary social skills and an empathetic nature. We provide direction as you develop lifelong strengths.

Contact us at kbrosnan@uark.edu, lalooney@uark.edu, deborahh@uark.edu and elmckinl@uark.edu.

KATHRYN LAMMERS & SUSAN WOOD, ROSE SCHLOSSER Education Counselors, Department of Nursing University of Central Arkansas

We are here to guide you as you seek admission to the nursing program and throughout your educational experience at UCA. We are commit ted to each of our students and to their success. Your UCA nursing instructors walk beside you during your education, serving as role models and facilitating your learning. We seek students who are motivated, intelligent, caring energetic, and able to work well with others. More information on our programs can be found at uca.edu /nursing or contact klammers@ uca.edu, swood@ uca.edu or rschlosser@uca.edu.

AMBER STANDRIDGE, JON VICKERS Academic Counselors UALR Department of Nursing

Nursing is a rare career field that is as much ART as it is SCIENCE. For nearly 50 years the UALR Department of Nursing has educated and guided individuals towards this honorable profession. We offer an Associate of Applied Science (AAS), BSN, LPN/Paramedic to RN and BSN online completion program. My advice for students is to take ownership and get as much information as possible about the nursing profession and degree options. Do this early and often! For more information about a program with consistently high NCLEX pass rates, state-of-theart simulation hospital and clinical opportunities at over 30 healthcare facilities, visit ualr.edu /nursing or email anstandridge@ ualr.edu.

s decide to enter the field. Because of In recent issues we started asking what made nurse this year. We talked to several nurses to its popularity, we brought the feature back again caring for others. Look for their stories find out what made them decide to spend their lives I Became a Nurse” boxes. throughout the issue in the specially marked “Why

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WH Y I BEC AM E A

I’ve always been one to nurture and comfor t and care. I always wanted to go into medicine, and I though t I could get more of the intimate experience as a nurse. Being there for the patient s on more than one level has drawn me to the career.

Krista Covert, RN, Baptist Health Medical Center

Ever wish you could hear first-hand from the people that are recruiting you?

HOSPITALS

Nurse recruiters for hospitals sometimes have a difficult task of matching the right person with the right job. Recruiters at some of the state’s largest hospitals tell what they look for in a candidate, what they offer and also what makes their programs stand out among others.

JAMES SCOGGINS, RN, BA, JD & BRYAN HALL RN, BSN, MS Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), and Assistant Director of Nursing (ADON) Arkansas State Hospital

At the Arkansas State Hospital we are on the cutting edge of psychiatric nursing, providing a trauma informed environment for patient care. We are seeking nurses with an attitude of compassion, enthusiasm, and professionalism.

If you’re seeking excitement and job satisfaction then a career in psychiatric nursing may be for you. Nursing personnel utilized to provide quality psychiatric care include: Registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, behavioral health aides, and unit safety officers. If you are a nurse looking to work in a great environment with competitive pay, benefits, and a sign on bonus then we may be the place for you. To learn more about employment opportunities with the Arkansas State Hospital Nursing Department, please give us a call at 501-686-94 00 or visit arstatejobs.com to apply.

APRIL ROBINSON Nurse Recruiter Baptist Health Medical Center

Our belief at Baptist Health is that we are a healing ministry.

We provide quality patient care services to all Arkansans with a caring and comforting heart. That is why we are Arkansans’ choice for their healthcare needs. We have a variety of nursing opportunities, from a Level III NICU to 90-bed Critical Care area. Baptist Health offers top quality benefits for employees. We look for nurses who not only think critically but are compassionate and service-oriented.

We want to offer a “World Class” environment for everyone.

To view job opportunities, log on to: baptist-health.com.

TAMMIE DEATON Human Resources Director The BridgeWay Hospital

Nestled in 18 acres of wooded serenity, The BridgeWay Hospital offers beauty of natural surroundings and a caring approach focusing on the mental and behavioral health of children, adolescents and adults. Listed as Central Arkansas Best Regional Hospitals in Psychiatry for 2013-2014, our quiet campus stands ready to help people reconnect with families, friends and employers. The BridgeWay Hospital offers a flexible benefits plan including retirement savings plan with available match; Employee Recognition Program; professional development opportunities; and discounted meals. Owned

by Universal Health Services, one of the nation’s largest and most respected health care management companies and recognized as a Fortune 500 corporation, we offer room for growth and professional development. For career opportunities, visit us at www.thebridgeway.com or fax HR at 501-771-8542.

MICHELLE ODOM Director of Recruitment and Retention Arkansas Children’s Hospital

Front Row: Anna-Kate Bogaards, Dee Dee Sturdevant, Michelle Odom, Mitch Highfill Back Row: Denise Cook, George Cobb, Yvonne Pendergraft, Evie Rodgers

As Arkansas’s only pediatric health care center and one of the largest children’s hospitals in the country, we offer a wide range of opportunities for nurses from direct patient care to staff education, research, administration, nursing informatics, and much more. When you walk through the main entrance, you see a statement: “Fear not illness… this place of Care, Love and Hope is for you.” This statement reflects our culture and guides our practice each and every day that we enter the halls. When considering potential employees, we look for individuals who have a true passion for providing care, love and hope to the children and families we serve.

MELANIE CRNIC Professional Recruiter Conway Regional Medical Center

Come join the Conway Regional Team. In 2014, 131 employees were recognized as exceptional performers by Conway Regional. Are you an exceptional person who wants to be appreciated and recognized for your work in providing high quality and compassionate care? We are looking for high performers who can help us continue to deliver the care our patients deserve. Check out what Conway Regional has to offer you!

MEGGAN SPICER Senior HR Recruiter Practice Plus

At Practice Plus, we are constantly recruiting for quality MA, LPN, RN, PA and APRN nursing candidates who embody our five core values of Service, Honesty, Respect, Stewardship and Performance. With over 92 locations and 267 providers, we strive daily to achieve our mission of providing quality patient service which is responding to the changing health needs of Arkansans with Christian compassion. As a Baptist Health Affiliate, we offer competitive salary and benefit packages. If you are a nursing professional with a caring heart, we encourage you to apply online at www.practice-plus.com.

SUSAN ERICKSON, RN, MNSc, BC-NA, CHCR Nurse Recruiter, Retention Officer Facilitator, PNO Image Council University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

At the heart of patient and family-centered care at UAMS is the belief that nurses and families are partners, working together to best meet the needs of each patient.

Excellence in health care happens when we work together and honor the expertise each individual brings to every health encounter. By working together, partnerships are strengthened and knowledge shared to provide the highest quality of care. It is what we expect from those who chose a career at Arkansas’s only academic medical center. We also offer unique opportunities combined with salary and benefits plus the personal satisfaction you receive working at UAMS – it’s hard to beat. That is why more than 11,000 employees enjoy a career for life. To join our team, log onto: www.uams.edu/jobs.

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the

STATE of

THE PROFESSION

of which is to increase the percentage of bedside nurses who have at least a bachelor’s degree. The report set a goal of having 80 percent of bedside RNs bachelor’s-prepared by the year 2020 — up from a current national average of about 50 percent.

“There have been some research studies done that show that if you have BSN nurses, they are associated with better patient outcomes,” said Michelle Odom, RN, MSN, director of recruitment and retention at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

In Arkansas, the percentage of BSN nurses is low enough that 80 percent is not a realistic goal for the near future, but that doesn’t mean the state’s nursing schools and many hospitals aren’t doing everything they can to raise the percentage as high as possible.

“To function at the level we need in healthcare, the registered nurse needs to be able to come to the table fully prepared,” said Tammy Jones, PhD, RN, associate chief nursing officer and director of the Center for Nursing Excellence at the UAMS Medical Center.

Many nursing programs in Arkansas still do grant associate degrees in nursing, and RNs prepared at that level will be able to find jobs simply because the demand for nurses is so high. But some hospitals are instituting hiring practices that will either require new-graduate RNs to have a BSN upfront, or require them to agree as a condition of employment that they will complete a BSN within a certain length of time. Nurses who are already employed won’t have nearly as many opportunities to advance unless they complete a BSN. “The Institute of Medicine is not saying that there’s not a place for associate degree programs,” Jones said. “They’re saying it can’t end there.”

ACH began changing its policies in 2011, when it put in place a requirement that nurses in all key leadership positions complete BSNs by December 2015. They’ve since put in additional policies affecting other leaders as well as nurses who are not

As

Kelley Cooper Photography

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ursing is evolving in response to changes inside and outside the field. Among the many qualities a person needs to be a good nurse is one you might not think of immediately: An openness to change.

Nurses who entered the field 20 or even 10 years ago have seen enormous changes in how they do their jobs, what those jobs entail, and even the education they need to have to move up in their careers. The pace of change promises only to accelerate in the coming decade. In this article, we’ll look at some of the ways nursing is changing, and what forces are driving those changes.

’80 BY ’20’ One of the biggest changes is a push for more educational preparation for nurses, both at the entry level and as they progress through their careers.

Many of today’s experienced registered nurses earned diplomas or associate degrees in nursing and found that was enough to land a good job and launch a successful career.

In 2010, the Institute of Medicine released a landmark report titled “The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health,” which called for a number of changes in the profession — one

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in leadership positions. Beginning this July, with the exception of current ACH team members who were employed before Jan. 1, 2014, and were currently enrolled in a non-BSN program, ACH will only consider BSN graduates as new-graduate RN hires.

“Anyone who’s considering going to nursing school needs to be aware of that and consider the long-term impact,” Odom said. “They need to at least consider going ahead and getting a bachelor’s degree.”

Conway Regional Medical Center has instituted a similar policy, said CJ Newton, MSN, RN, the hospital’s director of educational services. In January, Conway Regional began requiring BSN degrees for newgraduate nurses unless they are already employees of the hospital.

“Our positions are competitive. We’re fortunate to have a large number of new graduate applicants,” she said. It can be tough to have to turn away applicants who did well in clinical rotations at the hospital during nursing school but don’t have bachelor’s degrees, she said, but at the same time the hospital does have a lot of applicants with BSNs, so they’re able to limit their hiring to that pool.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND “In Arkansas, if we don’t count the people who are going to retire, we’re going to need to increase the population of nurses by about 29 percent,” said Lorraine Frazier, PhD, dean of the UAMS College of Nursing.

“That’s not even considering the average age of nurses, which is 55.”

As those more experienced nurses begin to retire, the organizations that employ them will be losing not only warm bodies, but decades of accumulated wisdom and experience.

“We need to be taking advantage of them now to mentor new nurses,” she said. “My advice to new nurses would be to get a mentor and learn all you can while those seasoned nurses are still there.”

The shortage and loss of seasoned nurses is also going to affect nursing schools, Frasier said, and that will have an echoing effect on the graduates those schools send out into the world.

So what’s driving the need for all these new nurses? One force is the Affordable Care Act — often referred to as Obamacare — which has given many people access to health care who would not have been able to afford it previously.

“We’re going to have to have primary care providers,” Frazier said — and within nursing, that means more nurse practitioners. Nurse practitioners have advanced degrees and are able to provide some of the same basic health care services as a physician. Applications for UAMS’s nurse practitioner program have tripled, she said.

Nurses will also have to face the unique needs of the part of the population that has long been unable to access health care, said Rebecca Burris, PhD, RN, chair of the nursing department at Arkansas Tech University.

“People who are new to the health care system may not even know what they’re supposed to do with a prescription,” she said. “They may have to do more explaining about how the health care system works.”

MEASURING QUALITY Today’s nurses are required to document everything they do in a very careful and structured way.

That’s because data has become a very important part of health care.

The federal government’s Medicare program as well as private insurance companies are now pegging how much they pay hospitals to how well those hospitals perform in a variety of specific areas.

“There’s never been a time when nursing has been more measured,” said Jill Massiet, vice president of patient care at Baptist Health. “People from the outside are looking at what we’re doing. Nursing care is really making a difference in patient

outcomes, and people are noticing that.”

It’s something nurses should embrace rather than fear, Massiet said. “We need to make sure we’re doing it right the first time, and using evidence-based practice in what we’re doing.”

Some of the “quality measures” that Medicare requires hospitals to track relate to antibiotic use, pressure sores and infections patients acquire after they’re admitted to the hospital for other reasons, and how well hospitals prepare patients to leave the hospital and transition to their homes or other care settings.

“Sometimes we get afraid that there are people monitoring us, or we have to hit this particular number,” Massiet said. “But it’s really making a difference in the care the patient receives. We can’t forget the patient is at the center of that.”

AGENTS FOR CHANGE

at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

ACH is “on the Magnet journey,” or going through the process of preparing to apply for Magnet certification, Eddy said. “So those principles are influencing decisions that our leadership team is making.”

The Magnet principles are supposed to bring discipline to the practice of nursing and patient care, Eddy said, as well as empower nurses to make decisions and advocate for change within their scope of practice.

The Magnet program also requires nurses to use evidence-based practices rather than simply doing things a certain way because that’s how it’s always been done.

“It means doing research and literature reviews, and finding resources to determine the best way to position a patient or administer a medication,” Eddy said. “It requires us to pay more attention to how we recruit and train new nurses.”

The days when nurses were expected simply to carry out a doctor’s orders and keep a patient comfortable are long gone. Nurses today are not only encouraged but expected to be able to take an analytical look at the needs of their patients and the care they’re providing and seek ways to make positive changes.

“It’s a really exciting time for nurses to start changing things, and to have more of an impact on the actual delivery of the care that nurses give on a daily basis,” said Pegge Bell, PhD, director of the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

One outgrowth of that trend is the growing popularity of the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. It’s a doctoral degree, on the same level as a PhD, but with a focus on the clinical care aspect of nursing — basically, what happens between nurse and patient.

Four universities in Arkansas have recently instituted DNP programs, and their graduates will be the ones leading future innovations in nursing care.

Nurses are uniquely prepared to take leadership roles because “we’ve got the big picture,” Arkansas Tech’s Burris said. “Our education is very broad. We look at the whole of health — not just when a person’s sick, but helping them have an optimal life.”

AGING POPULATION

MAGNET CERTIFICATION

Overall, this is an exciting time to enter the field of nursing, said UAMS’s Frazier.

“Nursing education today is better than it ever has been,” she said. “Today we have a different model, and we’re just beginning to understand what that model’s going to look like. There’s never been a better time to enter this profession than today. I wish I could roll back the clock and start over.”‪

The American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet certification program is a voluntary program that requires hospitals to go through an extensive review and evaluation of their nursing practice and meet strict quantitative and qualitative standards for nursing practice and patient care. The Magnet program is playing a major role in standardizing nursing practice, said Lee Anne Eddy, chief nursing officer

As the Baby Boomer generation ages and health care improvements allow people to live longer and survive illnesses and injuries that in the past would have been fatal, nurses are going to be caring for a population of patients that are increasingly sick and frail, at the same time that insurance companies and Medicare are instituting policies that encourage treating patients in the least intense environment possible.

“A patient that 10 years ago would have been in the intensive care unit is now on the regular hospital floor, and someone who 10 years ago would have been on the regular hospital floor is now with us,” said Diane Smith, MSN, RN, chief nursing officer at Baptist Health Extended Care Hospital.

And because hospitals are under pressure to lower the percentage of patients who have to return to the hospital within a month of being discharged, there’s an increasing focus on making sure the transition from an acute-care hospital to the patient’s home, a nursing home, a rehab facility or other care setting is seamless, Smith said.

“We need to be able to give the nurse in the next area enough information so she can care for the patient,” she said.

EMBRACING CHANGE

WHY I BEC AME A

After the birth of my second child, who was born with a cleft lip and palate, I was so deeply and profoundly touched by the compassion and love we had been shown in his medical journey, I knew I wanted to provide the same sense of comfort to families.

I wanted to learn more about the medical field, provide bedside care in the field of pediatrics and provide care, compassion, hope and love to patients and their families, so I chose to become a nurse — a neonatal intensive care nurse.

I now take care of the tiniest of patients, but feel I am playing a significant role in the lives of not only the patients, but the families as well. I became a nurse for the tough times and all the small victories, remembering how our family was cared for during a period of rollercoaster emotions and uncertainties.

Michelle Mollette, RN Arkansas Children’s Hospital I’ve known since I was a little girl I wanted to be in the medical field. It’s always been a passion of mine. As the older of two girls, I was always conditioned to take care of my younger sister. Also, I had always taken care of my grandmother, who is now 97 years young. My mother taught me empathy. She would always ask, “Nancy, how do you think that person feels?” I think this stuck, and I always find myself trying to put myself in other’s shoes.

As an employee at UAMS, I couldn’t be happier with the experiences I have been part of. We are all touching someone’s life every day.

Nancy Kemp, BSN, RN UAMS I became a nurse because my mom, who had passed away, started nursing school and never got to finish. So that was kind of my goal, to finish what she started and become a nurse. I always wanted to help people, and I always worked in the health care field — first a nursing assistant, then as an LPN, and then I went on to become an RN. I’ll finish my bachelor’s degree in nursing in December and will start my master’s degree next year.

I’ve always wanted to help people who are hurting or have an illness get back to their regular selves.

Angela Cleveland, RN Baptist Health

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THE VAST AND VARIED WORLD

OF NURSING

I

t’s a deceptively simple word: “Nurse.” Just five letters that most likely call to mind the image of a woman in a white dress standing beside a hospital bed, maybe taking a patient’s temperature or giving medication.

That image is both outdated and inaccurately limited. Nurses today rarely wear white dresses. Plenty of them are men. And while some nurses do take temperatures and give medications, many others don’t.

Nursing today is an enormously diverse career field, and it’s common for nurses to move from one area to another throughout their careers.

certification. Part of that is focusing on protecting the patient’s skin and offering short-term guidance on dealing with incontinence.

To become certified, Phares first had to have a BSN and several years of experience working as a nurse.

Then, she attended an intense 8-week training program at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and completed 120 hours of clinical (hands-on) work back in Little Rock.

“It’s a great job,” she said. “It gives you a lot of autonomy. You have the freedom to look at each patient and tailor their treatment to what they need.”

WOUND/OSTOMY/CONTINENCE CARE NURSING

PSYCHIATRIC NURSING

Take, for example, Lori Phares, BSN, RNP, CWOCN. She’s worked at the UAMS Medical Center since she graduated from nursing school in 1982, but in a number of very different areas: first in neurosurgery, then interventional radiology, nurse management, hospital nursing, and finally, wound/ostomy/continence nursing.

“It was just one of those flying leaps,” she said of her last move. “I thought, ‘How much could there be to wound care?’ There is a ton.”

As a certified wound/ostomy/ continence nurse, Phares works with patients who have pressure ulcers — commonly known as bedsores — and other wounds that may be the result of trauma or disease.

“In the hospital setting, we’re consultants,” she said. “We go in and evaluate the wound and see what it needs. Treatment is based on the patient assessment.”

The “ostomy” portion of her specialty is helping patients who have had diseases of the colon or bladder and use a surgically created route to void bodily wastes into a pouch outside the body. Phares mainly works to teach patients how to deal with their ostomy themselves and to help them accept it.

Phares also works with patients who have trouble controlling when they urinate or have a bowel movement — the “continence” part of her

When James Scoggins first got out of nursing school, he gravitated toward critical care nursing because of its fast pace and exciting nature. But, he said, of all the clinical rotations he did in school, psychiatric nursing was the one that felt like the best fit. He’s now been a psychiatric nurse for 17 years and is currently the chief nursing officer at the Arkansas State Hospital.

“Sitting and listening to patients’ stories, I realized there’s not a lot of difference between them and me,” said Scoggins, an RN who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a law degree. “A couple of different life events and I could have been on the other side of that table. The empathy it takes came naturally to me.”

Psychiatric nurses need the same skills as nurses in other settings, but they spend more time listening to patients and providing education and support, Scoggins said.

“The medications used to treat mental health problems often come with a lot of side effects,” he said.

So you educate the patient that they’ve got to take care of themselves physically as well, because that’s going to contribute to them getting better.”

FLIGHT NURSE For pure adrenaline, it’s hard to beat being a flight nurse. Latricia Maynard works for Baptist Health Medflight, traveling by helicopter to the scenes of car accidents and other traumas to

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ONE DEGREE CAN OPEN THE DOOR TO MANY CAREER PATHS

transport patients back to the hospital as quickly as possible. Flight nurses must also be certified as, at minimum, emergency medical technicians (EMTs) — a very different field than nursing, Maynard said.

“When nursing gets these patients, they’re all packaged up and stabilized the best way they can be,” she said. “On the scene, you’re getting them from scratch. Sometimes patients are still entrapped when we get there.”

Maynard was a paramedic before she went to nursing school, and worked the required three years in a high-intensity area (ER, ICU, etc.) before becoming a flight nurse. She also had to get other certifications, such as advanced cardiac life support.

Being a flight nurse has been Maynard’s career goal from the beginning.

“If we’re launching on a scene we’re going for the sickest, most critical people out there,” she said. “That’s a really cool thing. To me it’s just the best job I could possibly have. I joke all the time that I can’t believe they pay me to do this.”

NURSING INFORMATICS Computers are a fact of life in nursing, just as they are in most other careers.

That has led to the creation of the nursing informatics specialty, where people like Michael Hart, BSN, work to analyze data looking for clinical trends, help identify gaps in workflows, find ways to improve the use of technology at the hospital bedside, train other nurses in how to use new technology, and other tech-related tasks.

“It’s a very broad field,” said Hart, Vice President of IT Applications at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

“Your role will vary depending on where the organization is” in its use of computerized systems. One hospital, for instance, may still be using all paper records, and nursing informaticists might help shepherd that organization through the transition to using electronic records.

At hospitals that already use electronic records, nursing informaticists work to enforce and reinforce best practices to make sure employees are using the

technology in the best way.

Nursing informaticists must have a nursing degree. Hart said many nurses who apply to work in his department might have taken some informatics classes in nursing school, but he said he looks for nurses who either have a computer science degree in addition to their nursing degree or have at least taken some specialized training in addition to basic nursing education or have previous experience in a techrelated job.

Hart himself took an unusual route to nursing informatics: After graduating from UAMS with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, Hart worked as a bedside nurse for five years. The last two years of that time he also pursued a computer science degree, and before he completed it was offered a job as a programmer.

After four years as a programmer, he saw a job listing for a nursing informatics position at the VA hospital, which required a nursing license and computer experience. After taking that job, he pursued a master’s degree in health care informatics through an executive program at the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

“That opened the door for me to be an informatics executive at a higher level,” he said.

Nursing informatics can be a difficult field to break into because the number of jobs still is not very large, Hart said, but it can pay very well and there’s a lot of growth potential for people who have a lot of experience and are willing to move.

“The two things I tell people who call me are that I think it’s a great career if you can get in and find a stable position,” Hart said. “I really enjoy it and the people who like this kind of work will like it forever.”

INFECTION PREVENTION NURSING The recent Ebola epidemic in Africa put a spotlight on how easily diseases can be transmitted from one person to another, as well as some common precautions that can help keep them from spreading. As a certified infection control nurse at the UAMS

Medical Center, Connie Cavenaugh, BSN, works to educate patients as well as staff on the best ways to keep infections — or “bugs,” as they’re sometimes informally called — from spreading.

One of the HIGHESTDEMAND areas of the nursing field is NURSE EDUCATION. “We want to make sure that you do not get a hospital-acquired infection,” she said. “Our world revolves around that.”

Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are, like the term suggests, infections that patients pick up while they’re in the hospital being treated for a separate, unrelated health problem.

Hospitals have to track and report their HAIs to the state and federal governments. Minimizing HAIs has always been a moral imperative for hospitals, Cavenaugh said, but now it’s a financial one as well: Medicare and private insurance companies use HAI rates in calculating how much they pay hospitals.

The specialty of infection prevention nursing is about 30 years old, Cavenaugh said. She’s been in it since 1988.

“At first infection control was lowprofile, before the AIDS epidemic,” she said. “Now it’s more related to quality of care — looking through charts and giving a report. Some people would be bored to tears if they had to do it. To us it’s incredibly interesting — to see how this happened, to take it apart.”

Preventing the spread of infection becomes a passion for infection prevention nurses, Cavenaugh said.

“It almost becomes your mission in life — we’re not going to have anything happen to these people — transplant patients, NICU babies, people who can’t fight for themselves. You get to be a little soldier. A busybody. Boss.

We get lots of names, which is OK with us too.”

Cavenaugh has been a nurse for almost five decades, and in that time she’s worked with babies, the elderly, in the operating room, as a teacher, and in several other roles.

“One of things that’s always been so cool to me is I have options,” she said. “You can do lots of different things. You can find your niche, find something you enjoy. I just happen to enjoy chasing bugs.”

NURSE EDUCATION

Nursing schools across Arkansas and the nation are expanding their programs to try to produce more graduates to meet the growing need for more nurses.

As the assistant director of the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Jacklyn Gentry, RN, MSN, has watched as the school doubled its enrollment.

She said she loves teaching and planned to go into education from the time she started nursing school.

“I really love to see it when the light bulb comes on for the students,” she said. “It’s really rewarding to see students come in with no knowledge, and leave here ready to be a nurse.”

Gentry worked as a hospital nurse for three years before returning to school to get her master’s degree in nursing. She started teaching clinical courses part-time, and eventually got a full-time position on the UA nursing faculty. She’s now pursuing a doctorate in education, and still picks up occasional shifts at a local hospital.

“That’s pretty common,” she said of nurse educators. “It’s really important that we keep our clinical knowledge and skills up so we can provide the best education.”

At Arkansas Tech University, you will gain the knowledge and skills that you need for a rich and fulfilling career in the field of nursing. If you are already in the nursing profession and are looking to take the next step in your career, our Master of Science in Nursing Administration and Emergency Management might be right for you.

• Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in nursing programs available in Russellville.

• RN to BSN online program available for registered nurses.

LEGAL NURSING Tonya Gierke, RN, BSN, JD, was a nurse first, a lawyer second, and now works in a job that combines the two: risk manager, corporate compliance officer and privacy officer at Conway Regional Medical Center.

“My nursing background is significant in what I do for risk management,” she said. “Our focus is on keeping patients safe, making sure patients are protected and receive quality care. As corporate compliance officer, having the nursing background helps because our goal is to make sure we’re complaint with all the federal regulations and state health requirements, and the regulations for accreditation. I’m able to share with the nurses how this affects them and why it’s so important that they document everything correctly.”

Gierke was working as a flight nurse in Memphis when she decided to go to law school. She graduated in 2003 and went to work for a Memphis law firm that defended doctors, nurses and hospitals in malpractice suits. She came to Conway Regional in 2005.

“You can work for so many places – there are so many different things you can do,” she said of nursing. “If you decide you don’t want to take care of patients, you can still affect what their outcomes are in all different kinds of roles. There are just so many options when you’ve got that nursing background,” she said “I would never think twice about having gone to nursing school.”‪

For more information, call 479-968-0383 or visit www.atu.edu/nursing

One of the highest-demand areas of the nursing field is nurse education.

Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014 9

WHY I BEC AME A

I started college with little sense of what I wanted to do with my life.

I majored in biology but I quickly realized that just having a biology degree didn’t mean that I would be able to find a job. Nursing seemed to be a field where I would get to apply the knowledge I had obtained to that point in my education and be able to make a decent living. In nursing school I learned a lot about the science behind nursing, but also what a diverse field nursing is, and more importantly, how much nurses do for patients. This profession has made me a more compassionate person, and it has made me stronger. I have found the job to be challenging, rewarding, and most of all, fulfilling. I am proud to be a nurse and can’t think of anything else I would rather do.

Mark Tanner, MNSc, BSN, RN, clinical instructor, UALR My senior year of high school, my mom and I were talking about what I wanted to do with my life. She told me that she had always wanted to be a nurse but knew she would not be able to handle some of the unpleasantries required of nurses.

There was a real shortage of them. I decided that I would attend St. Vincent’s School of Practical Nursing and give it a shot. I absolutely loved it and couldn’t wait to finish. At that time the nurses uniform consisted of an all-white uniform, white hose and shoes and a white hat. I lived for the day that I could work as a nurse and wear that professional-looking attire.

The uniform got old fast, but the work did not. I was always learning something new and the bond you experienced with your patients, their families and your coworkers made it extra special.

Jeanmaire Brunner, LPN, UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute Thirty-eight years ago, I went to nursing school so I could get a well-paid job fast. My teachers and mentors at UALR educated and inspired me to make a lifetime commitment to nursing. But it was patients who transformed me into a nurse by entrusting me with their care. Touching people this way has been a terrifying responsibility and an exhilarating joy every day of my career.

IN NURSING, WORK AND EDUCATION GO HAND IN HAND

O

ne of the best things about choosing a career in nursing is the ability to work in your field almost from day one — and to continue working as you pursue your educational goals.

For most nurses, education is a career-long endeavor. It starts with the initial training to become a licensed practical nurse (LPN) or registered nurse (RN). This training can take anywhere from 9 months for an LPN to upwards of two years for an RN, but many nursing students find jobs in hospitals long before that working as patient care techs. These unlicensed nurses’ aides go through a few weeks of classroom training before going to work. They’re able to draw blood, take vital signs, and help with other basic tasks in hospitals.

Many nursing students work as patient care techs while they’re in school.

That’s where Jami Travis, RN, MNSc, got her start. Now a clinical service manager in surgical specialties at UAMS, Travis got a job as a patient care tech when she was in college and undecided about what she wanted to do.

“I thought at least it would show me a little about the hospital and taking care of patients,” she said. As she finished her bachelor’s degree in nursing at UAMS, she worked full time, and stayed on as an RN when she graduated in 2000.

“Working as an unlicensed staff person helped me more when it came time to take boards in school than school did,” she said. “You learn so much — you learn organization and time management. That’s a huge thing.

It’s definitely something you are better at when you work and go to school.”

Karen Wright, 45, decided to pursue a nursing career after 15 years as a

medical coder — someone who takes a doctor’s notes about a patient’s visit and translates it into numerical codes that insurance companies use to pay claims.

She’s hoping to finish her associate degree in nursing from UALR in May, and then will continue working toward a bachelor’s degree.

Her work as a coder has helped in nursing school, she said, because she’s already familiar with medical terminology and what tests and treatments are often done for certain diagnoses.

Alexa Nation, who graduated from Arkansas State University in 2012 with a degree in health promotion, is also working as a patient care tech while she completes her associate degree at UALR. “It gives me a lot of experience,” she said. “Since I did it before I started nursing school, when I went to clinicals I already knew some of the stuff.”

Nursing students who work as unlicensed staff at hospitals also have another advantage: Many hospitals will pay for part or even all of their tuition costs, usually in exchange for a commitment to stay with that hospital for a certain amount of time after graduation.

And finally, it’s good preparation for what is becoming reality in the nursing profession: when it comes to education, you’re never done.

Today, a growing number of nurses go back to school after they start working to earn higher degrees and certifications to better prepare themselves for the increasingly complex world of health care. That’s being driven in part by the landmark “Future of Nursing” report from the Institute of Medicine, which recommended that 80 percent of registered nurses in the US have bachelor’s degrees or higher by the year 2020.

The Arkansas Action Coalition, part of the national Future of Nursing Campaign for Action, has set a more modest goal for Arkansas: 40 percent of registered nurses with BSNs or higher by 2015, said Sandie Lubin, MA, RN, project administrator with the Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence

Jane Evans, PhD, assistant faculty, UALR Department of Nursing Nurse Jami Travis (right) worked her way up from patient care tech to a management position at UAMS. 10 Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014

at the UAMS College of Nursing. In 2008, 31 percent of Arkansas registered nurses had at least a bachelor’s degree.

In 2012, 36 percent did.

Some nursing students are able to finish a bachelor’s degree before they start working as an RN, but many others need or want to enter the profession in a shorter time period than it takes to earn a BSN. These students can become RNs through diploma programs and associate degree programs, and once they’re in the RN workforce, they can continue their educations through an RN-to-BSN completion program, which is typically all online.

Arkansas Tech University graduates 70 to 75 students from its RN-to-BSN program each year.

“We get great support statewide from hospitals,” said Rebecca Burris, PhD, director the school’s nursing program.

“Some of them have told their nurses they’ve got to have a BSN or they’re not going to have a job there. There are lots of opportunities — we have

our program, and a number of other universities have RN-to-BSN programs as well.”

Online education works so well for nursing degrees because nurses typically learn all the hands-on clinical skills they need in their initial RN training. After that, coursework focuses on other skills, such as leadership and management, cost analyses, community assessments, health care policy and research — knowledge that is essential for nurses to fulfill their potential as members of the health care team.

Beyond the bachelor’s level, nurses can pursue a growing range of graduate degrees. For example, advanced

practice nurses (APNs), which include nurse practitioners, are nurses who have earned at least a master’s degree and passed an advanced practice licensing exam. In Arkansas, APNs can provide primary care to patients in collaboration with a physician but can also practice independently. APNs are becoming increasingly important as a way to ease the shortage of primary care providers, which is especially severe in rural areas.

Nurses may also earn master’s degrees with the goal of becoming nurse educators or administrators.

More and more nurses are going even further and pursuing doctoral degrees.

Certification is another important

part of lifelong learning for nurses.

There are a number of certifications that nurses can get in just about every area of nursing, such as labor and delivery, operating room, nurse education, oncology and many more.

Nurses typically have to have worked a certain number of hours in their specialty area of certification, taken extra training and passed a certification exam, and be actively practicing in that specialty. Certifications usually are valid for two to four years, and nurses have to fulfill certain education and work requirements to renew certification. ‪

WHY I BEC AME A

I’ve been a nurse since 1985. My mother’s an RN, and I used to always say I’d never be a nurse, and I’d never do the things my mom did. My grandparents always said do it — you’ll always have a job. I was going to college to be a physical education major and coach basketball, and I got a job working as a nurse’s aide at a nursing home to help pay for school, and it just went from there.

My roommate went to nursing school and I did to. I’ve not regretted it. I think it was just fate. My first year of nursing was on the [hospital] floor, and then I came to the ER and I haven’t left. I like the independence and the constant change. It’s always a challenge.

Gwen Brunson, RN, CEN, Conway Regional Medical Center I wanted to make a difference in this world. I have been a patient, daughter, mother and wife of patients. Medical situations make a patient the most vulnerable that they will ever be. Being an advocate for my 15-year-old quadriplegic daughter created a fire in me to help others affected by chronic and acute illness. When she passed away in December, the empathy for my patients reached a whole new level.

I am blessed to be a nurse.

BJ Thorn, RN, BSN, care coordinator, Sherwood Family Medical Center, AHG/Practice Plus

ELEANOR MANN SCHOOL OF NURSING

Nursing Degrees To Fit Your Life nurs.uark.edu

|

online.uark.edu/nurse

Competitive-admission, on-campus bachelor’s degree: Bachelor of Science in Nursing Flexible degree plans for working nurses: RN to BSN online Advanced degrees for leadership roles: Master of Science in Nursing online Doctor of Nursing Practice online The bachelor’s and master’s degrees are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, Washington, D.C., 202-887-6791.

Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014 11

DEGREES OF

NURSING Whether looking to attend school for two years or four, part-time or full, Arkansas’s colleges and universities have a number of programs that will get you on the path to a nursing career.

ASSOCIATE DEGREE Associate degree programs, offered by two-year and four-year colleges and universities, must meet the requirements of a regional accreditation association and be approved by the Arkansas State Board of Nursing. At the completion of the program, the student is awarded an associate of science (AS) or associate of science in nursing (ASN) degree. The graduate is then eligible to take the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Licensure Examination (NCLEX) to become a registered nurse.

BACCALAUREATE DEGREE Baccalaureate programs must be approved by the Arkansas State Board of Nursing and are usually offered by four-year colleges or universities. Students typically take four to five years to complete the degree requirements. At the completion of the program, the student is awarded the bachelor of science (BS) or bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degree. He or she is then eligible to take the NCLEX to become a registered nurse (RN).

MASTER’S DEGREE Master’s degree programs are offered by fouryear colleges and universities for students who have completed at least a bachelor’s degree.

These advanced degrees prepare nurses to take on a variety of specialized roles, including nurse practitioner, nurse educator, and clinical nurse specialist.

DOCTORAL DEGREE The doctoral degree is the highest educational degree available in nursing. Some programs require students to complete a master’s degree first, while others are designed for students who have completed only a bachelor’s degree. There are two main options for doctoral degrees. The Ph.D., or doctor of philosophy, focuses on preparing nurses to work in researchbased fields. The doctor of nursing practice, or DNP, is a clinical degree that focuses on nursing practice.

NURSING LICENSE LEVELS Licensed Practical Nurse Both private and public two-year and four-year institutions offer practical nurse programs, which generally take 12 months to complete. Upon completion, the student receives a certificate and is eligible to take the NCLEX licensing exam and become a licensed practical nurse (LPN). LPNs typically work in long-term care, home health and doctor’s offices, although some hospitals employ LPNs as well.

Registered Nurse Both two-year and four-year colleges and universities offer registered nurse programs that are divided into two categories: an associate’s degree and a baccalaureate degree. There are also diploma programs that prepare students to become registered nurses without earning an associate’s or baccalaureate degree. Before going to work, the graduate is required to pass the NCLEX examination.

Advanced Practice Nurse Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) have at least a master’s degree in a specialized area of nursing practice. They may practice independently or in collaboration with a physician. APNs must pass an advanced licensing exam and may work as nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, clinical nurse specialists or other specialty areas.

Arkansas College/University

Years/Public Private

Calendar

Degree Offered

Length Of Program

BACCALAUREATE Arkansas State University - Jonesboro • 870-972-3074 (nursing) • 870-972-2031 (admissions)

4 yr public

Semester

BSN, LPN TO BSN, RN To BSN, 2nd Degree Accelerated BSN

varies

Arkansas Tech University, Russellville • 479-968-0383

4 yr public

Semester

BSN, LPN to BSN, RN to BSN, MSN, RN to MSN

BSN-4yrs, RN to BSN-1yr, MSN-2yrs

Harding University, Searcy • 1-800-477-4407, 501-279-4682

4 yr private

Semester

BSN, RN-BSN, LPN-BSN

BSN 4 yrs

Henderson State University, Arkadelphia • 870-230-5015

4 yr public

Semester

BSN

4 yrs

Southern Arkansas University, Magnolia • 870-235-4040

4 yr public

Semester

BSN, Online RN-BSN Completion and ADN

4 yrs BSN 2yrs/ADN, 2-4 yrs online RNCompletion program

University of Arkanasas, Fayetteville • 479-575-3904

4 yr public

Semester

BSN, LPN-BSN, RN-BSN (online program), MSN (online program), DNP (online program)

4 yrs for BSN, 3-5 semesters RN to BSN, 2 part-time MSN, 3 yrs full-time / 4 yrs partpost-BSN-DNP, 2 yrs part-time post-MSN-

UALR, Department of Nursing, Little Rock • 501-569-8081

4 yr public

Semester

BSN, RN-BSN Completion

7 semester BSN, 3 semester RN to BSN Completion

University of Central Arkansas, Conway • 501-450-3119

4 yr public

Semester

BSN, RN to BSN, RN to BSN/MSN, MSN & DNP

4 yrs/BSN, MSN varies, PMC varies, DNP 2yrs

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith • 479-788-7841, 1-888-512-LION

4 yr public

Semester

BSN

4 yrs for BSN/Varies for RN-BSN

University of Arkansas at Monticello • 870-460-1069

4 yr public

Semester

AASN (LPN-RN), BSN, RN-BSN, LPN-BSN

1 to 4 yrs

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Nursing, Little Rock • 501-686-5224

4 yr public

Semester

BSN, MNSc, PhD, DNP. Post Masters options available.

BSN generic: 2 yrs+1 summer/ RN to BS yr full time/ MNSC& PhD: students have to 6 yrs to complete degree requirement

Arkansas Northeastern College, Blytheville • 870-824-6253 • Paragould • 870-239-3200 • Burdette • 870-563-5110

2 yr public

Semester

AAS

2 year

Arkansas State University - Jonesboro • 870-972-3074 (nursing) • 870-972-2031 (admissions)

4 yr public

Semester

LPN-AASN, Traditional AASN (Traditional AASN offered at ASU Mountain Home, ASU Beebe, West Memphis)

varies

Arkansas Tech University - Ozark Campus, Ozark • 479-667-2117

public

Semester

AASN

varies

East Arkansas Community College, Forrest City • 870-633-4480

2 yr public

Semester

AASN

2 yrs

National Park Community College, Hot Springs • 501-760-4290

2 yr public

Semester

AS in Nursing

2 yrs

Mississippi County Community College, Blytheville • 870-762-1020

2 yr public

Semester

AAS in Nursing

2 yrs

North Arkansas College, Harrison • 870-743-3000

2 yr public

Semester

AAS in Nursing-traditional. LPN, LPN-RN

RN-2 yr; LPN-RN-1yr; PN-1yr

Northwest Arkansas Community College, Bentonville • 479-636-9222, 800-995-6922

2 yr public

Semester

AAS, RN

4 semesters

Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas, Helena, Dewitt, Stuttgart • Helena 870-338-6474 x1254; DeWitt 1-870-946-3506 x1611; Stuttgart 1-870-673-4201 x1809

2 yr public

Semester

AAS, technical certificate/PN

AAS 63 credit hrs, PN 54 credit hrs

Southeast Arkansas College, Pine Bluff • 870-543-5917

2 yr public

Semester

AAS: RN, Generic RN & LPN/Paramedic to RN. Technical Certificate: PN

PN-1 yr, Generic RN-5 Semesters

University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville • 870-612-2000, 800-508-7878

2 yr public

Semester

AAS-Generic RN and LPN to RN-traditional and online tracks, PN Program (Technical 11 mos, Generic RN program is 16 mos.

Certificate) Generic RN Program

University of Arkansas Community College at Hope • 870-777-5722

2 yr public

Semester

Associate/RN

12 months (excludes prerequisites)

UALR, Department of Nursing, Little Rock • 501-569-8081

4 yr public

Semester

AAS/LPN to RN/BSN

4 semesters

Baptist Health Schools Little Rock • 501-202-6200, 800-345-3046

private, faithbased

Semester

diploma/LPN, diploma/RN

RN traditonal track 3yrs. RN express tra 2yrs. LPN 1yr. RN Accelerated 1yr (LPNs Paramedics).

Jefferson Reg. Med. Center School of Nursing, Pine Bluff • 870-541-7850

private

Semester

Associate of Applied Science in Nursing

79 weeks

Arkansas Tech University - Ozark Campus, Ozark • 479-667-2117

public

Semester

AAS in Allied Health-Practical Nursing

3 semesters

Baptist Health Schools Little Rock • 501-202-6200, 800-345-3046

private

Semester

diploma/LPN, diploma/RN

2 semester LPN

Black River Technical College, Pocahontas • 870-248-4000

2 yr public

Semester

AAS/RN, Certificate/PN, Certificate of Proficiency/Nursing Assistant

AAS/RN 3 semesters, Certificate/PN 3semesters, Certificate of Proficiency/ Nursing Assistant 4 weeks.

Cossatot Community College of the UA, De Queen, Nashville • 870-584-4471, 800-844-4471

2 yr public

Semester

LPN

De Queen 11 mos Day Program, Nashvil 18 mos evening program

Arkansas Northeastern College Blytheville • 870-824-6253 • Paragould • 870-239-3200 • Burdette • 870-563-5110

public

Semester

Certificate of Practical Nursing

13 months

ASU Technical Center, Jonesboro • 870-932-2176

public

Semester

LPN

11 mos

Arkansas State University - Beebe • ASU Searcy Campus 501-207-6214

public

Semester

Certificate LPN

11 mos

Arkansas State University - Mountain Home • 870-508-6266

public

Semester

AAS-LPN/Paramedic to RN, certificate/PN, CNA

11-22 mos

Arkansas State University - Newport • 870-680-8710

public

Semester

Technical Certificate in Practical Nursing

1 yr

Northwest Technical Institute, Springdale • 479-751-8824

public

Semester

diploma/PN

3 sem. & 1 Summer session (includes Pre-Reqs)

College of the Ouachitas, Malvern • 800-337-0266 ext 1200

2 yr public

Semester

Technical Certificate in Practical Nursing, Associate of Applied Science in Nursing, Certified Nursing Assistant, Medication Administration Program

1-3 semesters

Crowley’s Ridge Technical Institute • Forrest City • 870-633-5411

public

Semester

LPN, CNA

LPN: 40 wks, CNA: 12 wks

Ozarka College, Melbourne • 870-368-7371

2 yr public

Semester

LPN, LPN-RN

11-18 mos

University of Arkansas Comm. College at Morrilton • 501-354-2465

2 yr public

Semester

LPN-certificates AAS-LPN, RN

3 semesters - 2yr

Pulaski Technical College, North Little Rock • 501-812-2200

2 yr public

Semester

Technical Certificate in Practical Nursing/PN

11-month traditional track/22-month no traditional track

National Park Community College, Hot Springs • 501-760-4160

Public

Semester

Certificates in Practical Nursing

13 mos FT

Rich Mountain Community College, Mena • 479-394-7622

2 yr public

Semester

certificate/PN, LPN, CNA, RN

11-12 mos

SAU Tech, Camden • 870-574-4500

2 yr public

Semester

Technical Certificate

11 mos

South Arkansas Community College, El Dorado • 870-864-7142, 870-864-7137

2 yr public

Semester

ADN,LPN

11 mos

University of Arkansas Community College at Hope • 870-777-5722

2 yr public

Semester

certificate/PN

10.5 months (excludes prerequisites)

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith • 479-788-7841, 1-888-512-LION

4 yr public

Semester

Technical Certificate

12 mos

University of Arkansas at Monticello College of Technology, Crossett • 870-364-6414

2 yr public

Semester

Technical Certificate in Practical Nursing

11 mos

ASSOCIATE DEGREE

DIPLOMA

PRACTICAL NURSING

*** for basic nursing education; varies with previous coursework or nursing license; MSN program = 2 yrs

12 Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014

To compile this, forms were sent to every qualified college and university with instructions to return by a specified deadline. Those sch

Living Arrangements

Aid Deadline

Scholarship Deadline

Required Exams

Application Deadline

Comments/Home Page Address

on campus housing for Jonesboro

July 1st

February 15th

ACT or SAT or COMPASS or ASSET

varies

Nursing programs are accredited by the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission. Graduate Degrees offered: MSN, MSN Nurse Anesthesia, and DNP Nursing Practice. www.astate.edu

on campus housing

varies

varies

BSN-ACT or COMPASS, RN to BSN-None, MSN-GRE

March 1st and October 1st, other programs vary

RN to BSN can be completed in as little as 1 year. Excellent Faculty. www.atu.edu/nursing

on campus housing

June 1st

Rolling

ACT or SAT

Rolling/$50

Quality nursing education with a focus on Christian service and professionalism. www.harding.edu

on campus housing

June

varies

ACT, SAT, or COMPASS

Feb 15th

The school with a heart. Small classes. CCNE Accredited. www.hsu.edu

-BSN on campus housing

July 1st

Priority March 15, Final August

ACT, ADN HESI Admission

September 30 for LPN to RN Transition or February 28 for Summer 2014 LPN to RN Transition

SAUM has an LPN to RN track for current LPNs or Vocational Nurses. www.saumag.edu/nursing

2 yrs on campus housing for BSN -time students -DNP

March 15th

November 15th

SAT, ACT, GRE for the MSN and BSN-DNP

Jan 15th for Fall admission; June 15th for Spring (none for MSN)

We offer generalist and advanced nursing degree programs to prepare nurses to meet the health needs of the public in an ever-changing health care environment. nurs.uark.edu

N

on/off campus housing

April 1st

February 1st

ACT/SAT for students with less than 12 credits.

Rolling

BSN completion for current RNs or recent graduates of an accredited nursing program. UALR students can Ladder into the online BSN and graduate within 4 years. www.ualr.edu/nursing

on campus housing available

July 1st

January 8th

see website

varies by program, see website for dates

CCNE Accredited BSN & MSN, RN Completion Program, www.uca.edu/nursing

on campus housing

Priority March 15th

June 1st

ACT/COMPASS

Oct 1st for Spring/ March 1st for Fall

RN-BSN is an Online Completion Program. www.uafs.edu/health/programs

on campus housing

contact financial aid (870) 460-1050 March 1st

none

March 1st

Achieve your nursing goals with us. www.uamont.edu/Nursing/academicprograms.htm

varies, visit nursing.uams.edu. Click varies, visit nursing.uams.edu on scholarships click on scholarships

TOEFL for int’l students, PhD-GRE, ATI TEAS V for BSN applicants.

BSN generic: March 1st/ RN to BSN: March 1st, July 1st & November 1st/ MNSC: September 1st & April 1st/ PhD: March 1st/ DNP-May1st

conadmissions@uams.edu • www.nursing.uams.edu

commuter campus

Priority April 15

Priority March 15

COMPASS or ACT and PAXRN

RN- March 31, PN- March 31

ANC offers the RN, LPN, and LPN to RN programs of study www.anc.edu

on campus housing for Jonesboro

July 1st

February 15th

ACT, SAT, COMPASS, or ASSET

varies

The mission of the School of Nursing is to educate, enhance and enrich students for evolving professoinal nursing practice. www.astate.edu

commuter campus

Priority April 15

varies

STEP

March 15th, October 1st

www.atu.edu/ozark

commuter campus

April 15th

varies

ACT, ASSET / Nursing Pre-entrance exams, COMPASS

varies

Allied health program offering RN-Nursing degree (basic students, LPN completion). www.eacc.edu

commuter campus

open

open

ACT, SAT or COMPASS, TEAS

Last Monday in March

Options for LPN and new High School graduates. www.npcc.edu

commuter campus

Priority April 15 - Rolling

Priority April 15

PAX-RN

March 31st

www.mccc.cc.ar.us

commuter campus

Pell Grant June 30

June 15th

ACT, COMPASS

varies with program

Northark’s students receive excellent healthcare education leading to rewarding careers in nursing.www.northark.edu/academics/nursing

commuter campus

June 1st and November 1st

April 1st

ACT or COMPASS TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills) First Monday in March and First Monday in November

The college of the NWA community, member of Northwest Arkansas Nursing Education Consortium. www.nwacc.edu/academics/nursing

commuter campus

none

none

none for admission

RN June 1st, PN June 1st or Oct 1st

RN Program, ACEN accredited. www.pccua.edu

commuter campus

open

none

ACT, COMPASS, PAX for PN,KAPLAN Admission Exam

Second Friday in March

Changing lives…one student at a time! www.seark.edu

commuter campus

varies

March 1- High school Academic; July 15- Others; Nursing Scholarship- Dec. 1

ASSET, ACT, SAT or COMPASS**, KAPLAN Nurse Entrance Test

PN May 1 - LPN to RN July15 - Generic RN entry deadline is May 1st

UACCB’s nursing programs are among the top programs in the state. www.uaccb.edu

commuter campus

none

none

ASSET, ACT or COMPASS

August 31st

www.arnec.org, www.uacch.edu

on/off campus housing

April 1st

February 1st

ACT/SAT/Compass for students with less than 12 credits.

Priority Application Deadline Feb 28/ Applications accepted until class full.

LPN/Paramedic to RN (1 year). Traditional AAS (2 years). Accelerated AAS (18 months). See above for BSN information. www.ualr.edu/nursing

commuter campus

March 1st priority

varies

ACT

3yr-July1, 2yr-June 1, PN-Dec 1 or June 1, RNA- Dec 1

www.bhslr.edu

off campus only

none

none

ACT

Applications accepted until classes filled. $35 application fee.

www.jrmc.org/schoolofnursing

commuter campus

Priority April 15

varies

TEAS

March 15th, October 1st

Clinical experience in hospitals of varying size, physicians’ offices and geriatric facilities. www.atu.edu/ozark

commuter campus

Priority March 1st

varies

ACT or SAT, NET

Dec 1st & June 1st

www.bhslr.edu

commuter campus

contact financial aid office

April 15th

ACT or ASSET

1st day of class

BRTC: A college of vision. BRTC has a 95% plus boards pass rate. www.blackrivertech.org

commuter campus

varies

June 15th

COMPASS, NET

Day Program-De Queen March 1st, Evening Program-Nashville August 31st Prerequisites required prior to admission. www.cccua.edu

commuter campus

Priority April 15th

Priority April 15th

COMPASS or ACT and PAX-PN

March 31st

Variety of clinical experiences. www.anc.edu

commuter campus

none

none

ASSET, NET

June 1 & November 1

Combines classroom instruction with clinical experience. Graduates eligible to take NCLEX.

commuter campus

varies

June 1st

ACT/COMPASS and Questionnaire

Call for further information

Application packet and program requirements are online. www.asub.edu

commuter campus

varies

varies

ACT, COMPASS, TEAS

Fall-April 30, Spring-Oct 15

Application packet and program requirements online. www.asumh.edu

commuter campus

contact financial aid

varies

COMPASS, TEAS

August class- June 1, January class- Oct 15

Application packet and program requirements online. www.asun.edu

commuter campus

July 1/Fall, December 1/Spring

June 1/Fall, December 1/Spring

NET, COMPASS

November 1st

Bilingual scholarships available- www.nwansged.org

commuter campus

open

Fall-May1, Spring-Dec 1

COMPASS

First Friday in September / Spring, First Friday in March / Fall

www.coto.edu

commuter campus

Please contact Shelly Laird at 870.633.5411 ext. 140

varies

ASSET, TEAS

Call for more information

www.crti.ar.tec.us

commuter campus

none

March 1st

Wonderlic, TEAS, LPN STEP

April 1/Fall, November 1/Spring August 31 - RN

Providing life-changing experiences through education. www.ozarka.edu

commuter campus

prior to semester

April 1st

COMPASS, NET Gap

LPN-June 1st, AASLPN-Oct 1st, RN-Aug 31st

Enrollment limited to 20 each admission for LPN. www.uaccm.edu

commuter campus

Oct. 15 for Spring, March 15 for Summer, May 15 for Fall

varies

ACT or COMPASS and Kaplan Admission Test

April 15th

Call an advisor to discuss pre-recuisites and eligibility. www.pulaskitech.edu/programs_of_study/nursing/practical_nursing.asp 501-812-2834 or 501-812-2339

commuter campus

none

none

COMPASS, TEAS

First Monday in March

Do you want to make a difference? Then nursing is for you! www.npcc.edu

commuter campus

varies, contact financial aid office

April

PSB and ACT, COMPASS

LPN-March, RN-Sept

www.rmcc.edu

commuter campus and on-campus

N/A

March 1st

ASSET. TEAS. Practical Nursing

June 1st

Two Applications required: admissions and nursing. www.sautech.edu

commuter campus

June 1, November 1, April 1

Priority April 1st

ACT, ASSET, or COMPASS

open

SouthArk: Where students come first. www.southark.edu

commuter campus

none

none

ASSET, ACT or COMPASS

May 15th

www.uacch.edu

on campus housing

Priority March 15th

June 1st

ACT/COMPASS/NLN PAX-PN

May 1st for Fall

www.uafs.edu/health/programs

commuter campus

varies

March 1st

ACT, COMPASS, ASSET, or SAT and TEAS

April 15th

Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. www.uamont.edu/uamctc

SN: 1 on campus housing e up nts.

.

ack s or

lle

on-

hools not meeting the deadline were repeated from last year. Every attempt is made to gather and verify the information.

Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014 13

the

time

Second Around S

hellie Mollette was a crime scene investigator.

Suzan Blair worked in telecommunications construction.

Richard Lovell programmed computers. Suzanne Harris was a high school English teacher.

Now, all four are nurses — among many who come to the profession after spending years, even decades, in other careers.

“It’s a very popular second-career choice,” said Jon Vickers, academic counselor in the Department of Nursing at UALR. Nursing is attractive as a second career for a couple of reasons: It offers almost guaranteed job security, and while it’s a very difficult and stressful job, when nurses clock out at the end of their shift, they leave work at work.

“There are a lot of jobs where people take things home with them, and they bring that stress home with them,” Vickers said.

“In nursing, when you’re done with your shift, you’re done.”

Mollette, 35, the former crime scene investigator, said she left that career behind for nursing because she needed a job that had more positive outcomes.

Because she already had a bachelor’s degree in her first field, she was able to get into UALR’s accelerated track and complete an associate’s degree in about 18 months. She’s now enrolled in the school’s online nursing bachelor’s degree program.

She had to quit her CSI job when she started nursing school, but worked at Arkansas Children’s Hospital as a patient care tech — an unlicensed nurse’s aide — while she completed her degree.

She now works as an RN in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.

“When I worked for the police department, it was everybody’s worst day that I saw,” she said. “Here in the NICU, they are there for a reason … but it’s just really fun to see the babies go all the way from very sick to normal infant and get to go home.”

Mollette has two young children, and said family support was crucial for her to be able to

finish nursing school. “Nursing’s not like any other program,” she said. “It’s not like regular college. It’s so much more demanding.”

Suzan Blair decided to change careers at the age of 41, after 23 years in telecommunications construction.

“I call it my midlife crisis,” she said. “I found myself divorced with three kids, and I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing. I just felt like I needed to find something that was stable. You can pretty much always find a job as a nurse.”

Blair chose to go to school full time and complete her BSN before she tried to find a nursing job.

She got a lot of support from the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Pulaski County, which helped her get a separate scholarship that paid for all her tuition and books, and also provided networking and support finding other resources. She graduated in August 2013 and went to work at UAMS. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said. “It was intense. But when your back’s against the wall you can do a lot of things you didn’t realize you had it in you to do.”

Richard Lovell had already been thinking about making a career change when he was laid off from his job after 24 years in information technology.

“I got a severance package, so it was a good time to do it,” he said. “I settled on nursing because there are so many things you can do.”

Lovell, who was 46 at the time, had to take 16 hours of prerequisites before he applied to nursing school, and finished his associate degree in two and a half years. He said he may go back to finish his BSN in the future, but now is still trying to decide which direction he wants to take his nursing career.

After he graduated he went to work for St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, where he’s now a critical care nurse.

“I really like taking care of my patients,” he said. “I get a lot of satisfaction out of helping people who are really sick.”

Seven years teaching high school English was enough for Suzanne Harris, RN, BSN, MS, to figure out it wasn’t something she wanted to do for another 30.

“It doesn’t offer a lot of diversity in what you do,” she said. “Nursing allows an enormous amount of diversity. It’s nice to have choices and options in a career that uses a lot of the same skills as teaching, and also makes a difference in people’s lives.”

14 Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014

Harris, now the director of oncology, medical/ surgical, outpatient and wound services at Conway Regional Hospital, was 30 when she started nursing school. Like Mollette, she also worked as a patient care tech while she went full time to earn her BSN. “It gives you a complete different perspective when you go back to school” as an older student, she said.

Whether someone who’s considering a career change to nursing should quit their current job first just depends on their situation, she said.

“I’ve seen people do it both ways,” she said.

“Through my position in management I’ve watched my staff transition — some go full time into nursing school, and some go a little at a time. It really depends on their home situation and financial situation. It can easily be achieved either way.”

It typically takes about two years to complete the coursework necessary to become a registered nurse, Vickers said. That doesn’t include prerequisite courses, but many second-career nursing students already have at least some college credit. About 25 to 30 percent of UALR’s nursing students already have a bachelor’s degree in another field, he said.

Paying for nursing school can be a challenge for those students, though, because federal financial aid programs are only available for students who don’t already have a degree. UALR offers the Willard and Pat Walker Foundation scholarships for students in that situation. The scholarships amount to about $100,000 each year and are based on financial need, academics, and professionalism.

Vickers said it’s important for anyone considering nursing as a second career to first think through how they’ll get the support they need to put everything on the back burner while they complete school.

Each nursing school does things a little differently, Vickers said. People should start looking at the various available nursing programs about a year ahead of when they actually want to start school, he said, because every school is a little different in terms of admissions criteria and prerequisites.

“Some people are very nervous about going back to college,” Vickers said. “They need to know it’s a super-common thing, they’re not going to be alone, that’s for sure. Our demographic makeup is all across the board. We’ve had students in their 60s.

We have an RN who’s finishing her BSN, and she’s over 75.” ‪

Schools & Hospitals Work Together To Promote The Profession

N

ursing is a great career, offering job security, challenging and interesting work, and the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of individual patients and the community as a whole.

The member schools and hospitals of Arkansas for Nursing have been working together for 17 years to make sure as many people as possible get that message.

“Our purpose is to promote nursing throughout the state of Arkansas and

encourage nursing as a career for high school and college students and second-career seekers,” said Michelle Odom, MSN, RN, director of recruitment and retention for Arkansas Children’s Hospital and president of Arkansas for Nursing.

The group’s membership is made up of representatives of health care organizations and of colleges with nurse education programs. They meet twice a year to talk about issues that affect nursing and ways to promote it as a career choice.

“It’s the dialog about what’s going on, the hot topics in nursing. People from health care organizations are able to talk about what they’re seeing with new hires, any challenges they’re having, new things going on in their organizations,

MyFuture@Work

and things that might impact people who come to their campuses,” Odom said.

For instance, when several hospitals that host nursing students for their clinical rotations began transitioning from paper charts to electronic charts, members of the group were able to talk about the best ways to make sure nursing students and instructors could have the access they needed.

Another issue the group’s members addressed was a delay the hospitals were noticing in the new nurses they hired getting their nursing licenses.

By having educators, employers and someone from the Arkansas State Board of Nursing in the same room, they were able to pinpoint where the breakdown was in the licensure process and discuss ways to address it.

“Everyone who needs to be there is talking,” she said. “That’s the benefit I see in it.”

In between the meetings, the group’s board of directors works on products such as marketing campaigns and recruitment fairs. Arkansas for Nursing invites every school and health care organization in the state to attend meetings, and typically between 50 and 60 people attend, Odom said.

“It’s a great opportunity for a lot of people with a lot in common to get together and exchange ideas,” she said.

For more information, visit the group’s website, www.arkansas4nursing.org. ‪

WHY I BEC AME A

The simple answer is people. After 30 years of life experiences, I have come to realize that I love helping people, whether it be something concrete, as in completing a specific task, or a subtle gesture like giving someone a listening ear in an attempt to make their day a little better. As the child of a nurse who is also a cancer survivor, I was able to witness the skills required to be a nurse. I also saw the small moments that are exchanged between the nurse and the patient that are equally important. A smile or a touch on their hand at a difficult moment has the power of letting that patient know that they matter and that they are cared about. All of my life experiences have led me to have a heart for connecting with and serving people. I am able to do both through nursing and it is a great privilege.

Stephanie Brown nursing student, UALR

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Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014 15

EXPERIENCE COUNTS

WHY I BEC AME A

NURSE RESIDENCY PROGRAMS GIVE NEW GRADS A JUMP-START ON THE JOB

I’ve always considered myself to be a helpful person. Growing up as a child, I remember being so excited to help my mother with my younger sister. As I grew older, I remember deciding in junior high that I wanted to be in healthcare because I wanted to help those in need. I set off to college to do just that. Initially, I was a pre-med student. However, I quickly changed my major to nursing because I wanted to be more directly involved with patients.

My life experiences have constantly reaffirmed that nursing is the career path for me. I believe I was meant to be a nurse. Today, I am a nurse and a nurse educator. I am truly blessed to be able to work in a profession I love. I am able to help, serve, and nurture others. These are the characteristics I see when I envision a nurse and what I believe nurses do best.

N

ursing education programs can provide clinical skills and knowledge, but there’s nothing like actually being responsible for a patient’s care and well-being.

Experienced nurses are getting harder and harder to come by, nurse recruiters at several local hospitals said.

Nurses from the baby boom generation are retiring in large numbers, and younger experienced nurses seem to be less interested in changing employers.

Nurse residency programs, established in the past couple of years at hospitals around Central Arkansas, provide an innovative solution to this problem. These programs guide newgraduate nurses through the transition from school to working RN and try to streamline and accelerate the process of turning green recruits into seasoned professionals who feel invested in their jobs and are therefore less likely to leave for a position at another facility.

Conway Regional Medical Center’s nurse residency program lasts for six months. New nurses meet twice a month to learn about aspects of working in a hospital that they might not have studied in school, such as the financial, security and legal reasons behind many of the rules and procedures they have to follow.

“Then we go into other things that affect them personally, such as how to prioritize care and manage their time,” said Rae Rhodes, RN, BSN, Conway Regional’s critical care education coordinator. “We do a section on death and dying, because a lot of people have not had a lot of experience in that area, especially as a nurse.”

Nurse residency programs are typically in addition to a new nurse’s regular orientation on the hospital floor, which can last for several months and typically focuses developing the clinical skills needed in that particular unit.

Some, including Conway Regional’s, are mandatory. Others are voluntary, but tend to be popular all the same.

“We’ve never had a nurse not want to participate,” said Pam McMahen, MNSc, RN-BC, staff/nurse educator for UAMS clinical programs, of UAMS’ year-long nurse residency program, called ACORN — for Achievement, Commitment and Opportunities for the Registered Nurse.

“We try to fill in some of the gaps, and try to help them learn how to grow and develop at UAMS,” McMahen said.

“They also get to find out that they

Larronda Rainey, PhD(c), MNSc, RN, director of RN-BSN program and APNF Project CoordinatorConway UAMS College of Nursing have a lot of the same concerns. We wanted them to feel supported among themselves so they can have a group they can grow with.”

Baptist Health has a 14-week nurse residency program for new graduate employees at Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, Baptist Health Extended Care Hospital and Baptist Health Rehabilitation Institute. It includes learning and clinical work experiences, and nurses learn about their own unit and as well as spend time in other areas of the hospital.

Arkansas Children’s Hospital welcomed the first class in its new nurse residency program in July. It’s a year-long program that includes 18 weeks of classroom and clinical sessions that focus on skills that are specific to working with pediatric patients. Classes are taught by bedside nurses, educators, pharmacists, social workers, child-life experts and others.

The year-long components include mentoring, which is focused on the new nurse’s professional development, and debriefing, which helps new nurses with the personal aspects of transitioning from school to the work world.

ACH has partnered with a company called Versant, whose nurse residency program was first established at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in 1999.

The company released a study a couple of years ago that looked at 10 years of data and concluded that a nurse who’d gone through the program’s 18-week classroom/clinical training functioned

16 Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014

Experience is a valuable commodity in any profession, but in nursing it’s particulary important. at the level of a nurse with 18 months of experience.

“It definitely expedites their learning and critical thinking process,” said Julie Bane, MS, BSN, RN, ACH’s RN nurse residency manager and clinical education specialist.

The residency program is also proving attractive to potential new employees, she said.

“It absolutely helps with recruiting,” Bane said. This is something that the nursing students are being taught to look for now.”

At Conway Regional, the nurse residency program is also helping with retention, said CJ Newton, MSN, RN, the hospital’s director of educational services. Nationwide, about one in four new-graduate nurses leave their first jobs within a year of hire. Some leave the profession altogether, but most take a different nursing position.

“I had a nurse in my office today who talked about how she left her first job as an RN in her first year just because she was scared to death,” Newton said.

“She didn’t feel like she was adequately prepared, and she didn’t have the support she needed. That’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid.” ‪

Growing up, whenever my twin sister and I would play school, she was the teacher and I was the school nurse. So I had dreamed of becoming a nurse since I was a child. I chose nursing because it’s a rewarding, fulfilling position. I enjoy being a nurse in the emergency department. Each day is a new adventure with new patients/ families and learning opportunities.

I am thankful I have the opportunity to make someone’s day better.

Whether it be a smile, a handshake, or a life-saving intervention, it’s a feeling of accomplishment at the end of my shift knowing that I made a difference in someone’s life.

Jessica Branham, RN, BSN emergency department Conway Regional Medical Center When I was 13 my best friend was diagnosed with leukemia. I saw what amazing care the nurses and medical staff provided and how they could make her smile even on the worst days. I was so moved by their compassion and the relationship they developed with her. My friend passed away at age 21, when I was in my last year of nursing school. I knew that I wanted to develop those relationships with patients, to be able to help them learn to manage what they were facing, to pray with them, to cry with them and to make them smile.

Tiffany Calaway, RN Baptist Health Family Clinic Bryant, AHG/Practice Plus

The

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Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014 17

soft skills Kelley Cooper Photography

Compassion, communication are core skills for nurses too

Nurses must be able to deliver compassion and empathy along with medicine.

E

very nurse spends years in the classroom and on the hospital floor studying and training to learn all the complicated medical information needed to take care of all kinds of patients. But those clinical skills aren’t the only ones nurses need to be successful today.

There’s an increasing focus in nursing on the “soft” skills — things like being a good communicator, treating patients and family members with genuine compassion and respect, working well as part of a team, and being a strong leader. These skills are a vital part of providing high-quality care to patients.

“It takes a very special person this day and age to be a nurse,” said Julie Moretz, UAMS associate vice chancellor for patient- and familycentered care. “It’s more than just the technical skills that we’re looking for.”

In fact, the soft skills are becoming such a focus that beginning in 2015, Medicare will determine how much it pays hospitals based in part on their scores on a standardized survey of patient satisfaction levels.

The survey asks about topics like

communication with nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, communication about medicines, and discharge information.

The survey, known by the acronym HCAHPS, has been around since 2008 — long enough to show that how patients feel about the care they get makes a difference.

“Patient engagement helps with hospital readmission scores,” Moretz said. “We know that nearly 20 percent of patients experience an adverse event within a month of discharge, and 75 percent of those can be prevented. If we are doing a better job to make sure the patient understands how to take better care of themselves, perhaps they wouldn’t have to be readmitted.”

Nurses have to be able to express themselves clearly and respectfully to patients as well as to their coworkers. Nurses give patients a lot of information about their condition and their treatment, and it’s essential that patients understand what their nurses are telling them. Otherwise, there’s a risk that patients won’t know how to take their medicine

18 Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014

when they’re back home, or won’t understand how important it is to avoid certain activities or come back to see the doctor in a certain length of time.

“In days gone by, when families had to sit out in the waiting room, nurses didn’t have to communicate with them,” Moretz said. “It’s a new day, a new age, and families want to be engaged and understand what’s going on. For that to happen effectively, we need to make sure our nurses have that capability.”

Compassion is also at the top of the list for nurses. Simply giving appropriate medical care isn’t enough. Nurses must be able to empathize with patients and their families, and provide emotional comfort as well as physical treatment.

“We’re largely focused on end-oflife care in one of my units, and one of the things my nurses do well is being there for patients,” said Suzanne Harris, BSN, RN, clinical director for oncology, medical/surgical, outpatient and wound services at Conway Regional Medical Center.

“There are times that scientific

medicine has nothing else to offer a patient, and at those times nurses have everything to offer: comfort, compassion, understanding and empathy.”

Those are skills every nurse should use every day with every patient, she said.

Many people come into the nursing profession precisely because they have compassionate hearts and want to help people, but there are ways to teach and model compassionate interactions with patients, Harris said.

“A lot of it is mentoring, so they can learn by watching,” she said. “They learn what boundaries are, that touch is OK — that it’s encouraged to sit on the side of the bed and pat someone’s hand when you talk to them because it’s very reassuring.”

Nurses absolutely must be able to work well as part of a team — to get along with their co-workers, be honest, and be open to what others have to say. Nurses today often practice as part of interprofessional teams, meaning they work alongside doctors, pharmacists, physical

therapists and other types of health care professionals to provide care to patients.

“Your work team becomes your family, especially when you’re spending 12-14 hours with these people,” Harris said.

Leadership ability is becoming an increasingly in-demand skill in nursing as well. In its “Future of Nursing” report, the Institute of Medicine called for nurses to take on roles where they could have a real impact on how hospitals are run and how health care is delivered in this country.

“All the national nursing organizations are really encouraging nurses to become involved at some level, whether that’s supporting the organizations, writing letters to Congress, or something else,” said Dr. Cathrin Carithers, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice program at the UAMS College of Nursing.

Fostering leadership skills is one of the main concentrations of the DNP degree, she said.

“Leadership is woven throughout our curriculum,” she said. “What we have found is that that’s what nurses are coming back to school for. The DNP degree really helps provide education for the nurse who wants to advance her practice at the leadership level — not just with individual patients

but with whole populations, local to global. To lead health care innovation and influence policy — that’s how we envision the role of the DNP. So nurses can go and change the world.”

These kinds of soft skills are much harder to test than, say, knowledge of anatomy or ability to insert an IV. But local hospitals’ nursing recruiters are finding ways to assess soft skills as part of the hiring process.

At Baptist Health all applicants take a skills assessment at the beginning of the application process to give recruiters a picture of how their abilities and values align with Baptist’s emphasis on soft skills such as honesty, integrity and respect. If the survey results turn up any concerns, the interviewing supervisor can ask questions in the interview that are designed to get at the root of the matter.

“We’re also asking certain questions to try to determine whether the candidate truly does have a passion for caring for people and a good work ethic, and if they’re someone who is going to be a good team player,” said April Robinson, a nurse recruiter at Baptist.

UAMS and Arkansas Children’s Hospital both use a software product called SkillSurvey, which allows an applicant’s references to complete an anonymous online survey about the applicant’s competency and

behavior that looks at areas like professionalism, interpersonal skills, problem-solving, and alignment with patient satisfaction. SkillSurvey results are a reliable predictor of an applicant’s abilities in those areas.

“When it works well, you get back a report on an individual that gives you can overall picture of how they work with a team? How do they communicate?” said Michelle Odom, RN, MSN, director of recruitment and retention at ACH. It’s also easier than trying to get references over the phone or in writing.

“It’s quick and efficient — they can complete the survey on their smart phone,” said Susan Erickson, RN, MNSc, nurse recruiter and recruitment/ retention officer at UAMS. “We have to look at how well the nurse is going to do with patient satisfaction, because that is now part of our universe,” Erickson said. “We used to just look at competency and the level of skill they provide. Now we have to include patient experience and that human touch.”

This past year, ACH also made a set of soft-skill behavior standards such as friendliness and taking care of one’s environment a major factor in job performance evaluations.

“Those count for about 40 percent of the evaluation score,” Odom said.

“That’s taking a big stand.” ‪

WHY I BEC AME A

I became a nurse because of the very wise words of my high-school best friend’s mother, who also is a nurse. I spent four years in the Army, and during my enlistment had the opportunity to become certified as an emergency medical technician-basic (EMT-B). My original intention had been to go to paramedic school after my enlistment ended. Near the end of my enlistment I was home on leave one weekend and staying with my friend. At some point the conversation turned to my plans following discharge and she said to me, “You could go to paramedic school and be out in the dark, the cold, the heat, the rain, and the snow. Or you could go to nursing school, work in the emergency room and have heat in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, and a roof over your head.” Having spent nearly the past four years in the infantry outside in the elements, that advice made a lot of sense to me!

Fermin Renteria, MNSc, APRN, CPNC-PC, clinical assistant professor and specialty coordinator for Graduate Pediatrics, UAMS College of Nursing

Arkansas

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FOR A Career in Nursing Can Be a Career

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Printing Provided by www.ThinkNurse.com Printing Provided by www.ThinkNurse.com Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014 19

TESTIMONIALS FROM EMPLOYEES AT THE BRIDGEWAY Liz Lejman, RN Employees of The BridgeWay support the community at the 2014 Arkansas Chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness Walk.

NURSING A

s Kerry walked across the parking lot from her car, she inhaled the brisk autumn air that filtered through the tall trees that surround the parklike campus of The BridgeWay. It had been nine years since she graduated with a degree in nursing but her nursing career doesn’t look like what she had imagined.

“When I entered nursing school, I knew that I would have a chance to make an impact upon the health of others,” she said as she pulled her keys from her purse. “However, until I began working here — my first real job out of college — I had no idea that I would have the opportunity to help so many others change their lives for the better.”

Like her classmates in nursing school, Kerry learned the hard skills of nursing. “I was taught how to assess and document the needs of patients, apply dressings, draw blood, work with doctors and provide patient care,” she said.

Yet she separated herself from the others when she chose psychiatry as a specialty. “Although I don’t have to wear a crisp white uniform, I still do some of those other jobs,” Kerry said, “but my role is more patientcentered as opposed to task-oriented, and I truly spend more time with the patients. It took courage to broaden my horizons.”

A CAREER IN PSYCHIATRIC NURSING IS UNIQUE. Although the hard skills are important, especially when treating those who are medically compromised, interpersonal skills are the primary tools of a psychiatric nurse. Yet while some nurses are accomplished communicators, others are not. Caring for people whose illness often results in impaired communication requires careful listening skills, self-awareness,

THE COURAGE TO CHANGE

empathy, and respect. Additionally, most psychiatric nurses are capable of incorporating their knowledge about mental illness with their attention to the patients’ life stories.

Working in a psychiatric hospital like The BridgeWay gives nurses opportunities to learn from observing and modeling experienced and effective clinicians. Also it is quite common for psychiatric nurses, as well as mental health associates, to learn from the experiences of the patients. Combined, these encounters tend to increase interpersonal skills, which are essential to psychiatric nursing. Considering that the National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that one in four adults (approximately 61.5 million Americans) experience mental illness in a given year, and approximately 13 percent of youth ages 8 to 15 experience severe mental disorders annually, psychiatric nurses have the potential to impact the lives of many people. But becoming a psychiatric nurse takes courage.

PSYCHIATRIC NURSING IS CHALLENGING YET REWARDING. “Of course, I stay in touch with my peers,” added Kerry while she walked through the brightly lit and colorful hallways of The BridgeWay. “As nurses, we are inspired to care for our patients, but they tend to do more to the patient while I do more for the patient. If you stop and think about it, it’s fairly daunting to guide a patient towards self-discovery so they may see solutions and make positive life choices.” Those processes are even more demanding when the illness is debilitating or the patient lacks the motivation or support from others, common circumstances in the state of Arkansas. “But I find it rewarding too,” she added before stepping into the shift-change meeting.

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COLLABORATION IS ESSENTIAL TO COMPREHENSIVE CARE. “This is actually my second career,” said Dan, who left the shiftchange session and walked towards the cafeteria. “I was a computer programmer but went to nursing school because I enjoy working with other people.” Because psychiatric disorders and addictions are multidimensional, they are often too complex to be treated successfully by one practitioner. As such, a team approach is often more effective.

“Here, our team includes psychiatrists and physicians, nurse practitioners and nurses, psychologists, social workers and mental health associates, physical and art therapists, and registered dieticians.” In order to provide continuity of care for all patients, The BridgeWay provides a multidisciplinary approach. “You know,” Dan mused while looking out across the mountainous landscape, “it took courage to change career directions, but it’s fulfilling.”

EDUCATION IS AN ASSET. Established over 30 years ago, The BridgeWay remains as the first free-standing psychiatric hospital in Arkansas. “With such longevity, many regard us as the experts in treating children, adolescents, adults and seniors,” said Dan, “but we can’t do it alone. We rely on our longstanding partnerships with the leading nursing schools as well as sociology programs to provide up and coming students as well as best practices.” In addition to facilitating student rotations, continuing education programs are offered at no charge to students and employees alike year-round. ‪

26-year employee “I enjoy my role here because of the other nurses I work with, the support from administration, and working with patients that are dealing with mental health issues, but I am also able to use my medical nursing skills.”

Joe Williams, RN 3-year employee “I love my coworkers, respect their knowledge and professional judgment, and rely on them for advice. We are proud to work at the #1 psychiatric facility in Arkansas.”

Vicki Weisman, RN 2-year employee “My supervisor is collaborative, open to questions and comments, always knows when to intercede and when to let us work things out. She respects and likes us, solves problems and is a strong, decisive leader.”

Donna Bingley, RN 31-year employee “I like that I am not just working with the client, but also with their family.

It is rewarding to see a patient’s progress from admission all the way to discharge. People are often afraid to work with this population because they have misconceptions that psychiatric disorders are a sign of weakness. We, as caregivers, see their progress first hand every day.”

Gwen Jones, mental health associate, 15-year employee “Working at The BridgeWay is like working with family. The atmosphere is professional, but rewarding at the same time. We work together as a team to ensure the patients’ needs are met with understanding, compassion, empathy, and dignity. Working at The BridgeWay is rewarding because we see the changes in our patients on a daily basis.”

Karen Waller, mental health associate, 1.5-year employee “Many patients come into the hospital that cannot function in the world around them. They may not even know where they are or recognize family members, but as time goes on; you start to see them improve. As they start treatment ordered by their physician, participating in therapy, and interacting with staff, we watch them become more coherent, talkative and actually asking questions about their illness and how to use coping skills to deal with stress that could be triggers for relapse.”

BEYOND

Candy-Striping

High school students in UAMS’s HEALERS summer program get hands-on experience in the medical field.

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oday’s hospital volunteers get an inside look at careers in health care Hospitals have always been a popular place for young people to volunteer.

They could pass out magazines, water the flowers in patients’ rooms, serve snacks, and perform other helpful, if limited, tasks.

Several local hospitals have upped their volunteer game in recent years, though, creating programs that give high school and college students an opportunity to get a more hands-on, up-close look at what it would be like to have a career in health care.

In Baptist Health’s STAR Volunteens program, volunteers spend two days a week during the summer working in hospital units doing tasks that might include answering patient call lights and helping move patients from one location to another. Older volunteers — those in college, usually pursuing a degree in a medical field — can volunteer in the emergency room as well, said Jim Gibbons, Baptist Health’s volunteer services manager.

“I can imagine you see anything and everything there, so I need people who really have a seriousness of purpose and who can take direction,” he said.

“I get a lot of physician assistants and premed students in that role.”

At UAMS, students going into their junior and senior years of high school can apply for the highly competitive two-week HEALERS summer volunteer program. Participants get to learn about a variety of medical careers, how to give first aid to accident victims and administer CPR, and about health issues that affect teens. They get to practice

their skills in UAMS’s simulation center and are allowed to volunteer in clinical areas that aren’t typically open to teen volunteers.

“They get real hands-on experience, working right alongside nurses and physicians and learning the craft,” said Erin Gray, director of volunteer services and auxiliary at the UAMS Medical Center. “It’s great to get these kids in here on the front end and give them a realistic picture of what goes on.”

Arkansas Children’s Hospital has an active volunteering program as well, but it also has a job shadowing program that gives high school students and adults an opportunity to spend up to several days closely observing nurses, doctors and other employees.

The hospital has also started using some college-age and adult volunteers for non-traditional volunteer jobs that help ACH explore different quality-of-care initiatives, said Robin Reynolds, ACH’s director of volunteer services. This past summer, college students helped administer patient/ family satisfaction questionnaires, in addition to more traditional duties like checking on families and guiding families around the hospital campus.

ACH also hosts full-time volunteers though Americorps and participates in alternative spring break programs with colleges around the country.

“We have numerous opportunities to introduce potential health care workers to health care experiences,” Reynolds said. “It’s amazing the number of former volunteers who are now work in health care.” ‪

WHY I BEC AME A

The reason nursing appealed to me, especially emergency room nursing, is that when somebody has probably the worst day of their life — they’ve almost died or been in a car crash or been severely injured somehow — I get to be a good part of that, to be the thing that changes for them. It was kind of a calling for me to be the calm in the storm. I want to be the kind of nurse where when someone looks back and says “I remember the day Grandpa almost died of a heart attack, and how awful it was, but that nurse made it so much easier to get through the day.” I’m not the nurturing kind where I want to just rock babies all day. I like to stop the chaos and get some order back, and say “OK, yes, this terrible thing happened to you. Let’s fix it together.”

Chelsea Holley, RN, BSN Conway Regional Medical Center

uca.edu/nursing

At UCA, you can be a part of one of the best nursing programs in Arkansas. Whether you’re seeking to become a registered nurse, or continuing your education in our graduate school, you have the option to take courses online as well as in our classroom. The quality of our curriculum combined with the opportunities provided put UCA’s nursing program FRONT AND CENTER.

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NURSES on a MISSION LOCAL NURSES PUT THEIR SKILLS TO USE ALL OVER THE WORLD

Melinda Kaney, RN, with one of her patients aboard Mercy Ships in West Africa.

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any of us see images or read stories about people in need in other countries and wish there was more we could do to help than say a quick prayer and send a few dollars.

For nurses, that wish is reality: Their training gives them skills they can use to change and save lives in places where the kind of health care we take for granted in the United States is just a pipe dream.

Nurses who’ve gone on mission trips say the experience tends to affect them in two ways: by challenging their assumptions and making them more aware and appreciative of how good we have it in here, and by improving their problem-solving skills and creativity.

Melinda Kaney, RN, knew she wanted to be a nurse who served on overseas mission trips years before she spent a month in Honduras at the age of 15.

“That trip cemented it in my mind — I know I want to be a nurse and do this.”

Two years after she finished nursing school she began applying to mission organizations, and between February 2011 and December 2013 spent a cumulative two years working for Mercy Ships, an all-volunteer

organization that provides health care both on the ground and on a hospital ship that docks in port cities along the coast of West Africa. The experience changed her life.

“The expertise and availability of medical care we have here is so different,” she said. “It’s hard to see kids dying because they don’t have the medications or the equipment or the technology you have in the States.”

Kaney said the two years of nursing experience she had before she volunteered with Mercy Ships helped immensely, but at the same she had no idea what she was getting herself into.

“The majority of what I worked with over there in the rural villages were things like malaria, dysentery, typhoid — stuff you don’t see here,” she said.

“There’s no way to prepare for that.”

Kaney was offered her “dream job” as leader of Mercy Ships’ orthopedics team in the summer of 2012. She stayed through the end of 2013, when she came back to Little Rock to pursue her bachelor’s degree in nursing. She’s now at Arkansas Children’s Hospital working as a patient care manager in the surgical/orthopedics unit.

“I want to do more in the future, but to what extent, I don’t know,” she said.

“I’m open to whatever. It’s in my blood now.”

Not every nurse is going to have the desire or ability to volunteer for months or years at a time, of course. Most go for a week or two, often with a churchsponsored team of doctors, nurses, and possibly a dentist and pharmacist.

Rebecca Culver, RN, a medical/ surgical nurse at UAMS, has gone on 14 short mission trips — twice to Guatemala, and for the last 12 years to a small town in Romania with a group

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of 10 to 20 other medical personnel.

Over the years their group has built a building in the town that houses a kindergarten and medical facilities for when the group visits. On each trip they spend a few days in the town, and then travel around to nearby villages that don’t have any medical facilities.

“Usually someone lets us borrow their house or another building,” she said. “This last year, in five days we saw 520 patients. It’s pretty amazing.”

Like many other groups, the members of Culver’s team all pack their suitcases full of over-the-counter medications, vitamins, and reading glasses, which are not readily available in the areas they travel to, and a pharmacist raises money to buy prescription medicine for common problems like high blood pressure.

“Romania seems like a home away from home for me now,” she said.

“Once I went I was hooked. Because even with the simplest little things you do for them, they’re very appreciative.”

Mission nursing can also be frustrating, of course. For instance, it can be hard to treat a child who has an intestinal parasite knowing she’ll be going back to the same environment and will probably have the parasite again in a few months, said Meg Prince, ER nurse manager at Conway Regional, who’s made two mission trips to Guatemala through a local church.

“You feel like you’re helping, but only for the short term,” she said.

Still, it’s a rewarding experience, Prince said, and she’s really enjoyed it.

Working in a country without the same resources as the United States can give nurses an important dose of perspective, said Rebecca Burris, director of the nursing program at

Arkansas Tech University. It can also improve critical thinking skills, she said.

“You really are treating the person, their comfort, without necessarily knowing the cause of their distress or discomfort,” she said.

Marti McNeill and her sister, Taylor, both nursing students at UALR, spent a week in Honduras last June. She said she was amazed how patient everyone was and what they were able to endure.

“The dentist removed this man’s wisdom teeth without anesthesia,” she said. “He went through terrible pain and still thanked her when it was over.

They wouldn’t do that here in America.”

Not all mission trips require weeklong commitments and overseas travel.

Becky Russell, RN, a staff specialist at Baptist Health-North Little Rock, volunteers through the Arkansas Southern Baptist Convention on oneday mission trips within the state.

Groups of about 50 medical volunteers set up a clinic in an underserved area and open the doors to all comers.

“I might do triage or assist a doctor with his assessment and diagnosis,” she said. She might spend time trying to help a patient understand his diagnosis and what changes he’ll have to make to live with it.

“It’s very humbling,” she said. “It keeps me in perspective about how good I have it in my job here.” ‪

WHY I BEC AME A

I remember my mom going through nursing school when I was 8 years old. I was completely infatuated with her nursing books and hearing all about nursing. As I got older I felt the pull the “care” for people. Whether it was a friend or family member, I wanted to be the one to nurse them back to health. When I was 16 my great-grandfather, who had suffered multiple strokes over the years, became critically ill. I spent evenings sitting with him at the hospital. It was during this time that the desire of a little girl to become a nurse became me knowing that nursing was what God was calling me to do.

Missy Chapdelaine, RN, Baptist Health Family Clinic Bryant, AHG/Practice Plus

Seeking dedicated nurses to join our award-winning team.

You chose the health care field to help others and to improve your community. So did we.

We’re committed to a culture of quality at Conway Regional.

And on September 15, Conway Regional Health System brought home the prestigious Governor’s Quality Award, becoming the first organization in Conway to win this top honor, which is given to Arkansas organizations exhibiting the highest level of performance excellence.

If you share our passion for high-quality care, apply for open positions at conwayregional.org or call 501-513-5410.

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Become the best nurse you can be.

Choose UAMS. Choose the UAMS College of Nursing to further your education with a Bachelor’s, Master’s, PhD or DNP degree! If you are a licensed RN, we offer convenient online classes to go from RN to BSN and RN to Master’s degree. No matter where you live, we’ll work with you to advance your career while balancing the demands on your busy schedule. As Arkansas’ only academic health system, we are engaged in interprofessional partnerships across all UAMS colleges and the Medical Center.

Choosing to practice at UAMS Medical Center offers you a unique clinical environment…working side-byside with the best and brightest clinicians in the state. UAMS also offers loan assistance to help you achieve your professional and educational goals, a robust clinical ladder, tuition discounts at U of A system colleges for you, spouse and children, low nurse-to-patient ratios as well as flexible work schedules. Plus an exceptional benefits package that includes a 10% retirement match!

www.nursing.uams.edu • 501-686-5374 www.uams.edu.don • 501-686-5691

Shannon Cooper, MNSc, APRN, FNP-BC UAMS Advance Practice Nurse and UAMS College of Nursing graduate 24 Advertising Supplement to Arkansas Times - Nurses Guide 2014