School of Health and Human Services Blog

Please read the information provided to you by the NUSNA Newsletter .

Dr. Eileen Heveron announced that the BS in Healthcare Administration was approved by WASC for online delivery. A special congratulations to Dr. Suzanne Evans and Dr. Michael Lacourse, for their leadership in this process. A special thanks also to Academic Services for managing the process.

We are pleased and proud to announce that Jennifer Powers, Medical Surgical Lead for the Henderson campus, passed her National Board Certification Exam on Monday and is now a Board Certified Family Nurse Practitioner. Please join me in congratulating Jennifer Powers on her accomplishment!

Dr. Mary McHugh and Dr. Tyler Smith attended the Palomar Pomerado Health 2011 Summit, "Living the Vision...Leading with Heart," December 7, 2011.

The NUSNA will be conducting a toiletry drive in conjunction with the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. This task force conducts the annual Point-in-Time Count, which is a one day count of all the homeless in San Diego County. During the count the volunteers hand out toiletry kits to the homeless. This is a great way for our organization to be involved in the community and give back while also promoting health. The drive will go through Wednesday, January 11, 2012 .

We are pleased and proud to announce our newest doctorally-trained faculty member. Dr. Catie Chung successfully defended her dissertation last week and completed requirements for her PhD in Nursing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Chung on her accomplishment!

Newly reported lupus was not associated with military deployment in support of the current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan when compared with nondeployers. Our study did note a significantly decreased risk of newly reported rheumatoid arthritis among deployers with and without combat exposures when compared with nondeployers; the reason for this finding is unknown, but may be due to a selection effect for deployment. Jones KA, Granado NS, Smith B, Slymen DJ, Ryan MAK, Boyko EJ, Gackstetter GD, Phillips CJ, Smith TC, for the Millennium Cohort Study Team. A Prospective Study of Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis in Relation to Deployment in Support of Iraq and Afghanistan; the Millennium Cohort Study. Autoimmune Diseases . 2011 Nov; vol. 2011, Article ID 741267, 13 pages, 2011. doi:10.4061/2011/741267.

On November 10, 2011, during the 14th Meeting of the Minds Behavioral Health Conference in San Diego Kenneth Woodson and Angela Geraci, two graduate students in the MPH program coauthored poster sessions. The conference, entitled Strengthening Communities: Behavioral Health’s Role, was organized by Mental Health America of San Diego County, the oldest consumer advocacy organization in San Diego, dealing with all aspects of mental health and mental illness.

Dr. Ellen Kaye Gehrke and Dr. Suzanne Evans recently presented at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting held in Washington D.C. They were part of more than 1,000 scientific sessions sharing the latest in public health research and practice with the more than 13,000 public health professionals. Drs. Gehrke and Evans shared a session on Alternative and Complementary Health. Dr. Evans also presented a session on Health Literacy and a poster research session on the Availability of Health Literature in Elementary Schools. Dr. Alba Diaz presented on the Effectiveness of CHWs Working Locally and Internationally with Migrants: Their key role in identifying and treating Ulysses Syndrome .

On Sunday, November 6th, 2011 NU Fresno Nursing department took part in a free public Health Fair sponsored by Telemundo Broadcasting, at Manchester Mall in Fresno, CA. The health fair offered a variety of medical checkups to Spanish speaking persons who do not have medical insurance. A team of Fresno Campus faculty, students and staff participated in this health fair, offering blood pressure tests, dietary and infant health information. I am proud to report that our nursing students completed over 320 blood pressure checks and passed out information for better living. I was proud to organize this event to promote the universities values, give back to the community and put forth a positive image of National University. Fresno Team Consisted of: Roslyn Villalobos, Student Support Specialist, Nursing Department Amy Mason, Nursing Adjunct Faculty Leticia Degraff, Conference Service Coordinator (Spanish Translator) Maria De La Mora, Student Accounts Officer (Spanish Translator) Robo...

1. On Monday, Oct 24th the NU-SNA sponsored a blood drive with the San Diego Blood Bank. The students contacted the SD Blood Bank, took charge of publicity and coordinated with NU-Facilities personnel to make this happen. Also, the majority of donations came from the nursing students ! By the end of the day, 37 units of blood were collected, exceeding the goal that was originally set. According to the SD Blood Band rep, this equates to saving 74 lives ! The SD Blood Bank was so impressed that they have asked the NU-SNA to plan to work with them again in the spring, and this time they are setting the goal even higher! 2. On November 12th, several of the nursing students from the NU-SNA will be volunteering at the 17th Annual “Taking Control of Your Diabetes Conference and Health Fair”. This conference is put on by local healthcare professionals that focus on the care of diabetics. It is for members of the general public who are living with diabetes The emphasis is to give people a...

Dr. Eileen Heveron announced that the AS in Health Informatics was approved by WASC for online delivery. A special congratulations to Dr. Tyler Smith and Dr. Micahel Lacourse, for their leadership in this process. A special thanks also to Academic Services for managing the process.

Eight of the Los Angeles Cohort 5 Bachelor of Science Nursing Students had the opportunity to participate in the Carenow-LA County-wide Community Health Screening on Thursday, October 20th. Along with their supervising faculty, Jocelyn Corrao, the students assisted in triaging about 1,000 uninsured patients on the first day of this four day event at the LA Sports Arena. Local television coverage of the event was broadcast. Jocelyn Corrao, RN, MBA, BSN, BC-G, Clinical Assistant Professor was an invited presenter at the jointly sponsored American Nephrology Nurses Association, Los Angeles Chapter 508 and Playa Healthcare and Education Consultants quarterly Nursing Education Seminar on Saturday, October 22. She presented evidence-based practice on patient assessment for risk of hypoglycemic episodes during hemodialysis.

On Tuesday evening, October 25, RTT 200 (Introduction to Radiation Therapy) will be taught live across three National University campuses (Costa Mesa, Sacramento, San Diego) using Smartboard technology. This event will usher in a new era of distance learning for National University and SHHS. Smartboard provides us with the capacity to teach live across muitple campuses and other locations in a modality that is as close to a traditional on-site class as possible. The use of Smartboard will also allow us to enroll students living in rural areas in our specialized health and human services degree programs. Moving forwad, expect to see Smartboards become increasingly popular in SHHS classes.

"Promotores and Promotoras are community members who promote health in their own communities. They provide leadership, peer education, support, and resources to support community empowerment. As members of minority and underserved populations they are in a unique position to build on strengths and to address unmet health needs in their communities. These humble cohort generally referred to as Promotores(as) or Promotores(as) de Salud, literally "health promoters", integrate information about health and the health care system into the community's culture, language and value system, thus reducing many of the barriers to health services. They also help make health care systems more responsive. With the appropriate resources, training and support, Promotores(as) improve the health of their communities by linking their neighbors to health care and social services, by educating their peers about disease and injury prevention, by working to make available services more acce...

We have some exciting news to share from the Nursing Department in Fresno. On October 18, 2011 we were honored to have our very first Nursing & Nurse Anesthesia Open House. Nearly 150 students, alumni, and guests from the community came to the Fresno Campus to discover our dynamic nursing degree programs. Our guests took a self-guided tour throughout our newly remodeled building, visiting our state-of-the-art Skills Lab, Nursing Simulation Center and Nurse Anesthesia Center. In the main “Meet & Greet” room, nursing staff & faculty were on hand for any questions regarding the programs. Our guests enjoyed the welcoming atmosphere as well as the accessibility to staff & faculty. Local media came to the campus and did an interview with staff as well our Director, Dr. Mary McHugh & Assistant Director, Ms. Donna Small. The Fresno Nursing department as well as the campus was overjoyed with the success of this event and hope to continue to host community orientated g...

Leleu TD, Jacobson IG, LeardMann C, Smith B, Foltz PW, Amoroso PJ, Derr M, Ryan MAK, Smith TC. Application of latent semantic analysis for open-ended responses in a large, epidemiologic study. BMC Medical Research Methodology. 2011 Oct 5;11(1):136. Using latent semantic analysis to analyze the final open-ended text field on the Millennium Cohort questionnaire helped identify important topic areas for future survey questions and also revealed the most common areas of concern for participants were illness and injuries, exposures, and exercise. Subjects with worse self-reported general health were more likely to provide a response in the open-ended text field than subjects with better general health. Link: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/11/136

Following the recent approval by WASC to deliver the MSN degree program completely online, we have scheduled the first string of courses to start in March, 2012. This is an exciting next step in the development of graduate degree programs in the Department of Nursing! Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Master of Healthcare Administration Student Alumni, Chhavi Gupta was hired as a Programmer/Analyst – Clinical Applications – AEHR with Scripps Information Services. Chhavi started the MHA program in March 2009. Last year, she started an internship with the Project Management Department at Scripps Health while working full time at San Diego State University. Through networking with colleagues, Chhavi was able to meet with the management group at the IS department and was hired on October 3, 2011. Please join me in congratulating Chhavi on her accomplishments and best wishes as you begin your journey and career at Scripps!

Please come join us in celebrating National University, Fresno BSN Program’s Open House ! Meet the faculty & staff, tour our new remodeled facility, and enjoy refreshments. Fresno Nursing will also be hosting blood drive the day of the event benefiting valley hospitals.

The Master of Science, Nurse Anesthesia program in Fresno, CA will undergo its final accreditation review on October 19 th and 20 th . A mock accreditation review was performed in the month of September by a private consultant, Dr. Betty Horton, CRNA, Ph.D. Dr. Horton’s mock accreditation report to the program and university administration was very positive. During her mock on-site review she also met with program faculty and administrators to discuss the process of the on-site accreditation review and answer any questions related to the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Programs (COA). The high fidelity anesthesia simulation center has also reached completion on the Fresno campus. The simulation center models a true to life operating room suite and is outfitted with the Laerdal 3G patient simulator, anesthesia gas machine, and crisis management equipment. In addition the patient simulator is equipped with RFID technology that enabl...