Honored Excellence
INA Provider Unit Designation Gives Medical Center Nurses Professional Development Opportunities
The University of Chicago Medical Center received approval as a provider of continuing nursing education by the Illinois Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's (ANCC) Commission on Accreditation. The three-year designation gives the Medical Center the ability to plan, implement and evaluate nursing education programs for its nurses consistent with the standards of the ANCC.
The Medical Center has had continuous designation as a provider unit since 2004, enabling it to deliver continuing nursing education that meets the ongoing needs of its nursing staff. It also makes continuing nursing education—a requirement for relicensure in Illinois—more accessible to Medical Center nurses.
Between June 2009 and June 2010, the Medical Center offered 584 contact hours through its provider unit. The total number of nurses participating in those programs was 3,067.
"This designation empowers the Medical Center to provide very valuable professional development opportunities for our nursing staff," says Rhonda Blender, MSN, RN-BC, the lead nurse planner for the provider unit and nursing development consultant in the Department of Nursing's Center for Nursing Professional Practice and Research.
Blender led the rigorous process of applying for provider unit designation, which included providing evidence that programs receiving contact hours have clear learning objectives, that educational content is linked to the learning objectives, that the methods of delivering content are in accordance with the principles of adult learning and that the faculty teaching the programs are qualified. Additional requirements ensure there are no ethical breaches or conflicts of interest.
In addition to Blender, Araceli Ruiz, BSN, RNC-NIC, CBC, clinical nurse educator for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; Rachel Jones, MSN, RN, clinical nurse educator for Labor and Delivery and 3 North; and Pamela Gonzalez, BSN, RN, associate director of education and quality in the Office of Clinical Research all participate in reviewing the documentation that accompanies continuing nursing education requests for contact hours.
