UH Manoa, Maui College, and Kauai Community College Launch Statewide Nursing Course Work
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Desiree Yamamoto
Community Development Officer
UH Manoa Nursing
dlyamamo@hawaii.edu
(808) 741-0617
Honolulu, Hawaii (August 22, 2012) – This week, the first Maui and Kauai associate degree nurse graduates began course work delivered through UH Manoa Nursing. The continuing enrollment of this group of students is the final phase in launching the seamless 3+1 program whereby students complete three years of course work followed by an additional year of study offered by UH Manoa Nursing. Courses are delivered via a combination of web based and face to face teaching that allows the student to complete the degree while remaining on their home island.
The increasing complexity of health care delivery requires that nurses be skilled in coordinating care across hospital, community, and home. To respond to the changes in the delivery of services and meet the changing needs of patients, nurses must achieve higher levels of education. Research shows that patients have better outcomes when care is delivered by an RN with a bachelor’s degree. Such nurses are known for their ability to communicate well with other disciplines, mastery of complex systems, and advocacy for patients and families.
Within this new model is the first undergraduate course on Native Hawaiian Health offered at UH Manoa. The course is designed to provide nursing students with a beginning understanding of the impact of culture and history on health and health care delivery in Hawaii.
The course will kick off with a ceremony this evening recognizing the faculty who contributed to the course development and colleagues from the John A. Burns School of Medicine who will teach sections of the course under the guidance of Joyce Vogler, DrPH, MSN, RN and Nalani Minton, MA, Director of IKE AO PONO, the UHM Nursing Native Hawaiian student cultural program. This is new course is the latest activity in a plan to increase statewide representation of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in the nursing workforce.
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UH Manoa Nursing, the Nursing Capitol of the Pacific, is the leader in nursing education and research in Hawaii with outreach to Asia and the Pacific Basin. We support the mission of the University of Hawaii at Manoa: to provide an innovative, caring and multicultural environment in which faculty, students and staff work together to generate and transmit knowledge, wisdom, and values to promote quality of life and health for present and future generations. The school offers the BS, master’s, and doctoral programs. To reflect Hawaii’s unique cultural diversity and heritage, UH Manoa Nursing is committed to increasing Native Hawaiian and other underserved people in all nursing programs. http://www.nursing.hawaii.edu/