School of Health and Human Services Blog

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...

National University Nursing students give back to the community by hosting a blood drive on Monday, October 24, 2011 at the Rancho Bernardo campus parking lot. To keep up to date on the latest information about NU's Nursing students, please read NUSNA News .