 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Erin Poe Ferranti, RN, MSN, MPH, Elizabeth Cantrell, MPH, and Caminade Moscatiello, RN, MN, MPH. Division of Public Health, Georgia Department of Human Resources, 2 Peachtree Street, NW Suite 15-450, Atlanta, GA 30303-3109
Since the fall of 2000, the Population Health online course has been offered to public health nurses in Georgia. A total of five schools of nursing in Georgia have offered the course and as of this writing, sixty-nine public health nurses have completed the course. The course focuses on building the following four competencies: 1. Community health assessment and diagnosis 2. Interpreting and presenting health information to local leaders, policy makers and partners 3. Using computer technology in the health planning and policy development processes 4. Building and sustaining community coalitions. Since July 2002, this project has been enhanced by the support of Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Division of Nursing grant funding. Through the support of the grant funding we have been focusing on addressing the challenges indicated by the public health nurses who have taken the course through offering one-on-one computer training and encouraging supervisors to provide the necessary work time to complete the online course. We are also enhancing the population health content through ongoing continuing education programs, and most importantly we are examining the appropriate indicators to measure the impact of population health practice throughout the communities in Georgia. We are seeking to understand the impact of population health practice through a combination of evaluation methods including health data and indicators, quality assurance and quality improvement reviews of each county health department, course participants’ annual self-evaluations and worksite/supervisor evaluations. Through these evaluation methods we anticipate demonstrating evidence-based population health practice in Georgia.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Population, Nurses
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.