AACN AND HARTFORD INSTITUTE HONOR
INNOVATIVE NURSING CURRICULA IN GERONTOLOGY

Mankato State University Wins Top Honors in Annual Competition
For Educational Models of Excellence

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 26, 1998 -- With teaching strategies that "bring reality to the issues older adults experience," the School of Nursing at Mankato State University is the first-place winner in the first Award for Exceptional Curriculum in Gerontologic Nursing, presented by the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing at New York University (Hartford Institute) in collaboration with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).

The awards, established by the Hartford Institute and presented October 25 in ceremonies at AACN's fall semiannual meeting in Washington, D.C., nationally recognize schools and programs of nursing that exhibit exceptional, substantive, and innovative baccalaureate curricula in gerontological nursing education.

"With the health system moving to deliver needed care to a rapidly expanding elderly population, geriatric care skills increasingly will become part of every nurse's repertoire," says AACN President Andrea R. Lindell, DNSc, RN. "These awards honor models of excellence that encourage the highest standards of gerontological nursing education, and AACN is proud to have played a lead role in coordinating and developing guidelines for this important initiative. We are proud, too, that the Hartford Institute has chosen the occasion of AACN's semiannual conference to prominently recognize these educational programs that are breaking vitally important new ground."

"Most nurses some time in the course of their careers will take care of older adults," says Mathy Mezey, EdD, RN, FAAN, professor of nursing education and director of the Hartford Institute at New York University. "It falls to the entry-level professional nurse to assure that the elderly receive high-quality nursing care. And it falls to baccalaureate nursing schools to optimally prepare their nursing students for their responsibilities to the elderly. We are delighted to be able to foster and showcase nursing schools that are in the forefront of meeting their responsibilities through outstanding geriatric curricula. We are also delighted to partner with AACN in this effort."

As first-place winner, the Mankato State University School of Nursing in Mankato, Minnesota, received an award of $1,000. Runner up awards of $500 each were presented to the College of Nursing at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, and the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. Honorable Mentions went to the School of Nursing at Warden College of Health and Human Services at Radford University, in Radford,Virginia, and Quinnipiac College Department of Nursing in Hamden, Connecticut.

Winning curricula were selected for their innovative approach, demonstrated relevance in clinical settings, and ability to be replicated at other nursing schools and programs. Reviewers sought small, innovative, and promising programs, as well as larger, well-established curricula to be showcased as proven models of excellence. Common elements of those models include free-standing courses, a creative use of multiple clinical sites, experiential teaching in both classroom and clinical settings, partnerships with community resources, faculty who are knowledgeable in geriatric nursing care, and integration of the gerontological experiences into the overall curriculum.

Curricula of all winners will be summarized and distributed to nursing programs nationwide.

Winning Elements

At Mankato State, two gerontological nursing courses use a wide range of teaching strategies to help students better understand what it is like to be elderly and to examine their own attitudes about aging. Among their curricula, students are required to perform patient histories and physical assessments of elderly patients in both nursing home and community settings. Additionally, each student interviews elderly clients for life review; observes the development of care plans by occupational, physical, and rehabilitation therapists; works one-on-one with an Alzheimer's patient; spends a day in an adult day service; and works with elderly clients who are developmentally disabled or mentally retarded. Coursework also includes evaluating the access elderly have to community facilities such as health clinics, supermarkets, and theatres.

Also honored this year were:

Runners Up

      University of Alabama in Huntsville, College of Nursing -- a collaborative, community-based clinical experience that prepares registered nurses who are returning for the baccalaureate degree to meet the needs of rural elderly in northern Alabama. As a supplement to coursework on long-term care and care of families and communities, students work in pairs and are assigned a caseload of homebound elders, providing health assessments and implementing other community-based services. The program, part of a coalition of the nursing school, health care experts, social service agencies, and civic groups, has been replicated in six other nursing schools in southeastern states.

      University of Pittsburgh, School of Nursing -- Students are exposed to gerontological material throughout the four-year program, including a required course on gerontological nursing in the junior year. Learning activities include, among others, providing traditional nursing care in acute and long-term care facilities, promoting the psychological well-being of a long-term care resident over a seven-week period, providing health screenings and health teaching to individual elderly in the community, and providing 3 1/2 hours weekly of respite for a caregiver and home care for Alzheimer's patients.

      University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Eleanor Mann School of Nursing -- Two courses in the senior year link gerontological nursing research with policy and practice. Students research a topic on promoting health in older adults and translate those findings in revising or creating policies or practice protocols at cooperating health care facilities. Students also have four separate visits with an elderly client and become intimately involved in developing a care plan.

Honorable Mentions

      Radford University, School of Nursing, Warden College of Health and Human Services -- Included in the undergraduate gerontology curriculum is a course on Nursing of the Adult, where students are paired with an elder in an assisted living facility for a semester. Other coursework on nursing leadership assigns students in clinical rotations to develop improvements in long-term care facilities, while students working on a clinical externship in gerontological nursing are placed as certified nursing assistants in cooperating agencies.

      Quinnipiac College, Department of Nursing -- Gerontological nursing concepts are integrated throughout the curriculum. For example, inter-generational issues are introduced in coursework on family planning, while two courses in the senior year provide a gerontological concentration. In addition, the Elder/Student Project, a mandatory program, pairs a well elder in the community with a nursing student, who establishes a therapeutic relationship and performs health assessments throughout both the junior and senior years.

For information and application forms for the 1999 awards program, contact the Hartford Institute at 212-998-5568, or on the World Wide Web at
www.nyu.edu/education/nursing/hartford.institute.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing is the national voice for university and four-year-college education programs in nursing -- the nation's largest health care profession. Representing more than 500 member schools of nursing at public and private institutions nationwide, AACN's educational, research, governmental advocacy, data collection, publications, and other programs work to establish quality standards for bachelor's- and graduate-degree nursing education, assist deans and directors to implement those standards, influence the nursing profession to improve health care, and promote public support of baccalaureate and graduate nursing education, research, and practice.

Shaping care for the elderly nationwide through nursing...Guiding innovation in nursing practice, education, research, and public policy to enhance and humanize care for the elderly...Providing knowledge and information to the professional and the public.

The Hartford Institute's goal is to set a national agenda and shape the quality of health care for elderly Americans by promoting the highest level of competency in the nurses who deliver that care. By raising the standards of nursing care, we aim to ensure that people age with optimal function, comfort, and dignity.

The Hartford Institute's primary mission is to identify and develop best practices in nursing elder care and to infuse these practices into the knowledge- base and work environment of every practicing nurse and nursing student. By assuming national leadership in establishing the highest standards for geriatric nursing care, we seek to educate the public to expect and require them. The Hartford Institute is housed at the Division of Nursing at New York University and funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation, Inc., of New York.