Meet New Members of our NRC Team
 

Whether you have been part of the CCPS/CFRC development since the beginning or are new to the Bay Area NRC, you may be interested in learning more about the "behind the scenes" Bay Area NRC team - the ones you don't see and the ones that will ultimately depend on user fees for continued operations. We are the newer members of the team that developed the web application software, collect and respond to your feedback (delivered by Nikki and KT), and we will be working with you to make CCPS and CFRC more and more useful. We are the Health Care Program team at the Foundation for California Community Colleges (FCCC).

 

Based in Sacramento, the FCCC uses grant funds to support access to education, start innovative programs that help colleges and students, and leverage technology for the good of all. All FCCC programs must "pay for themselves". No state or other government funds are received. Like other non-profit organizations, we depend on grants, donations and, more recently, endowments.

Our Health Care Program team members are all fairly new to FCCC and the NRC project. The newest, Kathy DeGuerre, joined the program on June 25 as Technical Manager. Kathy will partner with Nikki West to understand your needs as users, and coordinate updates and changes with the software development team at FCCC. She manages system implementation and training, ongoing development, and client support.

Kathy has extensive background working with web-based applications, training and client support for Sprint (in California and Kansas) and Charles Schwab (in San Francisco). Her family is in the shrinking stage: she and her husband have successfully raised two daughters and a son. She is based in the FCCC Sacramento headquarters.

 

Sandy Jenter is our team's "senior member," joining in January 2007. Sandy recently changed her role, and is now the Technical Assistant. She is the voice you hear at the Help Desk. Sandy also tests the development and operations of the software. Her job is to try to make it fail or break, then provide feedback to the development team so they can continuously strive to make it foolproof.

 

Sandy is mom to a teenage girl, and lives in Walnut Creek. If you have called the help desk, you may think Sandy is from Germany, but she is actually a native of San Francisco. Her family moved to Germany when she was a young girl, but as an adult she decided she prefers California. Prior to FCCC, she had her own business doing websites for small businesses. Sandy works in FCCC's Pleasant Hill office (East Bay, near Walnut Creek).

 

I joined FCCC in February as Director of the Health Care Program. Like most of you, I am an RN. My experience is in service: 36 years in hospital nursing and 2 in nonprofit advocacy for nursing and health care. My hospital career divides into thirds. I spent twelve years as a staff RN, twelve as a nurse manager and director, and twelve as chief nursing officer. My first 24 years were at St. Joseph Hospital, Orange. I was a CNO in a small (180 beds), for-profit hospital in northern California for three years, and for nine years in a large (489 beds) multi-campus district hospital in the central valley. My clinical specialty was ICU. I have an ADN from Fullerton College; BS from University of Phoenix, and MBA from The Claremont University. I am active in the Association of California Nurse Leaders and have been on the advisory board of CINHC since its' inception. I am a founder and chair of Flo's Cookie Jar, an emergency grant fund for RN students.

 

We are all pleased to be working with you to alleviate the shortage of RNs. I "lived the shortage" in my last few hospital years, with up to 100 vacant positions and enormous pressure to decrease the use of travelers. The cost of those travelers went from 0 to $7 million annually because of the high patient volumes and the lack of RNs in the region. The 22 bed ED often reached a census of 40.

 

The innovation that CCPS offers is more than a clinical placement system: it is a way to help us increase capacity for students. We are turning away about 65% of qualified applicants from our schools. We cannot continue to do things in old ways and expect good outcomes. All of us at FCCC are grateful to you for your patience in developing this system. You have our word that we will do everything we can to make the systems easy for you to use.

Listening to Your Feedback: Survey Results from Fall Placement Cycle
Thanks to all of you who responded to the latest user survey. We got an outstanding 48% response rate. The results are clear - you are using CCPS and you are finding clinical sites for the ever increasing numbers of RN students. We appreciate those of you who suggested improvements, too. The applications, CCPS and CFRC will receive full-time attention now from developer Geoff Owens who will be able to incorporate your feedback. Watch for opportunities to get involved in the user group in the next few months.

 

Over the past few months, the BASC has been very busy sponsoring training and educational events. Over 100 participants have attended these sessions representing the 10 counties around the Bay Area.
 
The very successful Simulation User Network (SUN) sponsored by Laerdal held at the Hilton Newark/Fremont in March hosted approximately 100 participants who learned new strategies for integrating simulation into their curriculum. 
 
CINHC hosted a simulation demo for our OB educators sponsored by Gaumard in May. Over 40 educators attended the demo of the Noelle and baby simulators. (See photo below)

Two "Level 1" trainings were held in January and March for educators with little or minimal experience. We are currently holding a class this week in Livermore. These classes were designed to provide basic "buttonology" training for simulators, introduction to scenario writing, and debriefing. These classes have been sponsored by our partner, Laerdal Medical. We plan on training our own BASC instructors for future classes and begin that process at the level 1 training this month.
 
Two "Level 2", or intermediate training classes were held with 28 educators trained. These classes, taught by Michael Seropian, Bonnie Driggers and their team from OHSU were intensive learning opportunities resulting in participants having a better understanding of simulation teaching concepts and acquired scenario writing, and debriefing skills. Evaluations for these classes have been outstanding.
 
Upcoming events include debriefing classes on September 27th and 28th taught by Kim Yaeger; level 2 training on October 5th and 6th also on November 16th and 17th, and the 1st Annual Clinical Simulation Conference on November 2nd held at the Hilton Newark/Fremont. Please see website for more details on all these upcoming events.  
 
Our scenario writing groups, facilitated by Dr. Colleen O'Leary-Kelly have been hard at work since February writing a total of 21 scenarios for peds/OB/Med-Surg/Peri-Op. We had a great validation session on July 5th and 6th and the next step is testing the scenarios with actual students from Chabot College in August. Once the scenarios are tested they will be available to share amongst BASC members. If you are interested in being a writer for Phase II of the process contact Colleen at colear@son.sjsu.edu or KT at KT@cinhc.org

BASC Participants attended a demonstration of the Gaumard Noelle birthing simulator at the CINHC office on May 22, 2007