Extension’s nursing outreach program serves a predominantly rural audience. At least 92 percent of Missouri’s nurses who attend educational programs are from outside the metropolitan St. Louis and Kansas City areas.
Nursing Outreach
Source: MU Extension Annual Report, FY 2008
Both independently and in partnership with numerous organizations, the Nursing Outreach and Distance Education office provides face-to-face, Web-based and telecommunications-oriented education for nurses and other health-care professionals in Missouri and surrounding states. In FY 2008, nurses from 76 percent of Missouri’s counties and the city of St. Louis attended continuing education programs sponsored by the office.
As the MU Sinclair School of Nursing’s primary outreach effort for nearly 50 years, the fully accredited, state-approved office continues to provide quality, affordable lifelong learning opportunities for Missouri’s registered nurses, regardless of their specialty, practice setting, affiliation, academic preparation or geographic location.
Learning is more than listening to lectures. Nursing Outreach and Distance Education uses the latest simulation technology to assist learners in sharpening their hands-on skills in order to remain clinically competent.
In addition to its own educational activities, which attracted 1,725 nurses and other health-care providers throughout the year, the program provided professional continuing education credit to another 1,194 nurses attending conferences, activities and events offered separately by the MU School of Medicine. Many of the outreach efforts are multidisciplinary and provided in cooperation with local, state and national nursing and health-care organizations. Through co-sponsorship arrangements, the office also awards continuing education credits to non-nursing health-care professionals, including social workers, dietitians, nursing home administrators, physicians, psychologists, school counselors, addiction counselors and health educators.
The opening of the MU Leadership Development Academy for Registered Nurses in Long Term Care in November 2007 is one example of how the program is growing partnerships. Within long-term care facilities across the state, nurse leaders have a proven role in staff recruitment and retention, staff satisfaction, resident outcomes and overall quality of care. By working with academic nursing, professional associations and nursing home employers, the academy works to enhance the strengths of the registered nurse participants who fill those leadership roles.
In additional to founding the federal grant-funded academy, the nursing outreach office received $245,467 in competitive external grants and contracts during the year. It also initiated an educational program called “Evidence-Based Practice on the Frontline,” designed specifically for staff nurses to address building a culture of quality, safety and nursing professionalism. The event attracted nearly 190 participants.
Nursing Outreach Web site
Success story
Nursing Continuing Education Research Helps RNs Become Leaders
Shirley Farrah, assistant dean for nursing outreach and distance education at the MU Sinclair School of Nursing, has known for years that long-term-care nurses are “lone rangers.”
“They are often in rural and underserved areas, have no colleague reference group, face unfamiliar regulatory issues and lack a leadership or management background,” Farrah says.
To bring these nurses into the fold, Farrah obtained a federal grant to host the MU Leadership Development Academy for RNs in Long-Term Care. The certificate program is offered in eight sessions during a nine-month period at six sites across Missouri. The innovative and evidence-based curriculum offers a mentoring component, ongoing interaction with peers and faculty, a class project and an optional professional development day, as well as continuing education credit.
What differentiates the academy from other continuing education opportunities is research, Farrah says. To create the program, Farrah developed an advisory council. The members reasoned that if the point was to think critically, problem-solve and incorporate learning into daily practice, the nurses needed to get away from the work setting and come together.
With research in hand, participants from the first year say the academy has helped them network with peers, grow as leaders, learn about industry trends, develop interpersonal skills to better serve others and change the way they see leaders and themselves.
“My participation has influenced the way I perceive my position as nursing director,” says Jody DeLuca of Rolla, “especially in effecting change. I now perform more as a leader than a manager.”