Professionally managed health-care has known no boundaries in the recent years. Global demand for nurses, in particular, continues to escalate. Proliferation of nursing jobs advertisements in the internet is a chief indicator of this massive boom.

The nursing career has also evolved from its usual hospital setting to now include home care, privately-run nursing homes for the elderly, and other out-patient services provided for by the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). The nursing career has surpassed territorial boundaries, as demand opens inter-racial career opportunities worldwide to even include internet-based health care provision. “Travel Nursing” is a tagline, made popular by this borderless career.

Apparent shortage of nurses is caused primarily by an increasing demand to diversify health care. Today, more and more nursing homes, caregiver centers, wellness program facilities, and other similar health-related services have transformed the roles of nurses from health-care support providers to frontline dispensers of managed care, maintaining it outside of traditional facilities. Doctors remain as key players in the health-care industry, but nurses have definitely become prime movers.

The current lack of nurses is also triggered by the worsening number of senior citizens getting chronically ill, thus, necessitating private nursing care. This, and all other reasons included, signifies the pivotal role nurses play in a now global perspective.

This rapid global transcendence of the nursing degrees over other health-care professions triggered most nursing schools to adopt a more progressive approach to the nursing curriculum. To vie for global prominence, nurses should be able to take on more diversified roles with high competencies, technologically equipped to administer care without forgetting the most essential: to deliver exemplary care to all patients, regardless of race.

It has become imperative, therefore, to focus on nursing continuing education as a jump-off point of all these endeavors.

Today’s Nursing Programs Curriculum:

Cognizant of the current trend, the nursing curriculum has adopted fields of study that are more attuned to the call of the times: beyond hospital in scope, and technology-based. These new fields of study are infused into the general nursing curriculum with special emphasis given on monitoring and assessing health status and care via the Internet. This will facilitate a more proactive and globally entrenched nursing care without necessitating overseas travel. Nursing curriculum, therefore, is now leaning to worldwide standards.

Preventive health care rather than in-patient hospital care will take precedence for years to come. This can leave the hospitals for acute treatment only.

Baccalaureate Nursing Programs

Duration: Four (4) Year University/College Instruction

Baccalaureate Nursing Program prepares high school graduates, who want to proceed to a nursing career in the next four years, a solid foundation on total health care – hospice care, preventive care and health maintenance. Basically, the curriculum covers all facets of general learning – humanities, social sciences, basic sciences, business, psychology, sociology, ethics and nutrition. Under the present curriculum, however, technology-based subjects are introduced.

Grade Point Average of 2.5 allows the student entry to the sophomore year where formal nursing classes are introduced.

Higher levels in the Baccalaureate Program expose the students to clinical skill and nursing theory. Nursing courses include health promotion, family planning, mental health, environment and occupational health, adult and pediatric care, medical and surgical care, psychiatric care, community health, management, and home nursing health care.

Baccalaureate programs must be approved by the State Board of Nursing. This will insure that graduates of the program have access to the licensure examination required by the State. Accreditation with a nursing accreditation agency duly authorized by the US Department of Education follows.

At this level, all nurse practitioners should have areas of specialization in any of these fields: psychiatry, critical care, infection control, pediatrics, neonatology, women’s health, obstetrics and gynecology, and oncology.

Progressive Curriculum: From Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) to BSN Program

Practical nurses are interchangeably called Licensed Practical Nurses. LPNs are practitioners of health care under full supervision of a registered nurse, doctor, or dentist. Most commonly, practical nurses should pass a licensure exam, the National Council Licensure Examination for Practical Nurses – only then they can be aptly called LPNs.

Articulation Agreements Among Nursing Education Programs

Articulation Agreements allow the progression of a nursing course from Associate Degree Nursing to Baccalaureate Nursing Programs through transfer of course credits. Depending on the type of Articulation Agreement entered into, most articulation agreements are collaborating on by members of the faculty of schools involved in the agreement. This prevents redundancy in course offerings, simplifies application processes and promotes cooperation and teamwork among dispensers of different nursing programs.

Articulation Agreements are Mandated, Statewide or Individual.

Mandated Articulation Agreements are sanctioned by laws promulgated by the State Board of Education, while Statewide Articulation Agreements come as results of collaborative efforts among educators, stakeholders, and legislators while Individual Articulation Agreements is a school-to-school approach of approving and accepting credits between ADN and BSN.

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