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Abstract #149111

George Shuster, RN, DNSc, University of New Mexico: College of Nursing, MSC 09 5350, Albuquerque, NM 87131-001, 505-272-5612, gshuster@salud.unm.edu and Jean Giddens, RN, PhD, University of New Mexico: College of Nursing, MSC 09 5350, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-001.

Case Management in Public Health Nursing (PHN) Courses

Most PHN courses have at least some clinical case management hours as part of the clinical experience. The benefits of case management in the community for student learning experiences are well recognized and documented in the literature. Often, these clinical case management hours are a significant percentage of the total clinical hours for students.

The Problem

Recently, a number of factors have made it increasingly difficult for faculty to provide public health nursing student case management experiences. There are issues, barriers, or problems with student placements that include government regulations such as HIPPA, mandates from Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JACHO) involving nursing competencies for students as well as staff, changes in reimbursement for home health agencies, staff shortages, fluctuating agency caseloads, and increased numbers of nursing students competing for limited clinical sites in the community.

The Solution

One potential means for addressing this problem is utilizing an innovative educational approach, known as The Neighborhood, to supplement case management experiences in public health. The Neighborhood is a fictitious Web-based community consisting of characters in households and various supporting community agencies. Character stories unfold on a week to week basis extending over three academic semesters. The stories represent a variety of health-related and professional nursing issues that impact characters on an individual, family, and community level. The text-based stories are supplemented with short video vignettes, photos, and medical records as applicable. The Web application allows continuous access to the stories.

Web based courses and web enhanced courses are an integral part of nursing education. A web based Virtual Neighborhood builds on this approach, expands it to case management, and provides one solution to a growing problem in PHN education.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the process of how a virtual neighborhood family can be used for case management.
• Identify and list the 3 strengths and weaknesses identified by students using virtual neighborhood families for part of their case management experience.
• Discuss the process for web based distance nursing students using virtual neighborhood family members in a case management experience.
• Analyze the assessment and clinical care plan example for students using virtual neighborhood family members in a case management experience.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.