The Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing at Belmont University will host two major statewide healthcare events this week.
On Thursday, November 4, 2010, invited nurse leaders and other healthcare professionals from across the state will meet in the Curb Events Center at Belmont for the Tennessee Primary Care Nursing Summit. The Summit will examine how to maximize the contributions of nurses and develop recommendations to meet the challenges and opportunities of healthcare reform in the delivery of primary care services to improve the health of Tennesseans.
The event is scheduled in coordination with the release of the Institute of Medicine’s report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. Dr. Susan Hassmiller from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is spearheading efforts for this initiative and will deliver a keynote address at the Summit. Other speakers include Dr. Paul Erwin from the University of Tennessee Center for Public Health and Policy, who will outline Tennessee challenges, and Dr. Peter Buerhaus from Vanderbilt University, who will look at cost and utilization data related to advanced practice nurses.
The Summit is sponsored by the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, in conjunction with the University of Tennessee College of Nursing at Knoxville and the Health Sciences Center, the College of Medicine at the UT Health Sciences Center, and the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing at Belmont University. The Baker Center is a nonpartisan institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville devoted to education and scholarship concerning public policy and civic engagement.
Nurses across the state will have opportunity to watch a live or archived webcast of the Summit’s keynote addresses and can post comments on a blog hosted by the Baker Center. Input from participants at the summit and on the blog will be used by Baker Center Fellows to develop final summit recommendations and strategies. Once the Baker Center report is released, nurses can use the report to advocate for recommended changes with state policymakers and other stakeholders. Copies of the report will be available on the Baker Center website after the first of the year.
In addition to the Nursing Summit, Belmont will also host the third annual Tennessee Nursing Simulation Conference beginning on Thursday, November 4, 2010. Last year, nearly 150 educators and hospital administrators from Tennessee and various other states attended the conference, which is presented by Belmont’s School of Nursing and The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee through a grant from the Partners Investing in Nursing’s Future – a collaborative initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation.
The conference is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of simulation technology and resources and to build communication networks for educators in Tennessee. Conference faculty include nationally renowned experts on simulation technology in healthcare education and training.
This year’s conference will feature a mass casualty disaster simulation presented by the Arkansas State University Regional Training Center for Disaster Preparedness Education. The Center is part of the University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions and offers certification courses in basic and advanced disaster life support. These courses provide training in areas such as detecting disasters, incident command, securing the scene and making it safe for responders to go in, assessing additional hazards, establishing triage and treatment, taking on and off hazardous materials suits, assessing and treating persons injured in disaster, and administering medications stored in the strategic national stockpile.