The Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing is proud to announce its official designation as an approved provider of nursing continuing professional development by the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
While the college has been an approved provider for several years, it’s now credentialed as an approved provider with distinction until 2024. The designation improvement is in response to efforts by the Outreach and Professional Development office to streamline the in-house approval process for programming offered by the college.
As a result of continuous advances in health care and caregiving, nurses often consider themselves lifelong learners, making continuing education necessary and natural. Depending on location and specialty, nurses are required to obtain a certain amount of continuing professional development known as contact hours. For example, in Pennsylvania, to maintain active licensure, registered nurses (RNs) are required to have 30 units every two years, including child abuse recognition and reporting.
Being a resource to nurses throughout the commonwealth, the Nese College of Nursing aims to offer a variety of options for nurses to obtain their nursing continuing professional development. Seminars, online learning modules, simulation trainings and even courses in contact tracing have all be approved by the Outreach and Professional Development office in the college.
In the past year, the college has offered more than 1,200 credit hours to over 340 professional registered nurses for learning in support of licensure and professional development. The associated learning also extended to more than 900 additional participants, including students, who benefit from this outreach learning. This work in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is a point of pride for Kelly Wolgast, she said, as she not only led the University’s response to COVID-19 as the director of the COVID Operations Control Center, but she also serves as the assistant dean for outreach and professional development.
Wolgast said, “Maintaining our nursing continuing professional development opportunities for registered nurses is one way that we could provide some normalcy during the pandemic. I am pleased that we can be this reliable resource for registered nurses who participate in our contact hour activities.”
The Pennsylvania State Nurses Association (PSNA) serves the nursing profession by reviewing and approving educational organizations throughout the state of Pennsylvania. PSNA ensures educational standards identified by the America Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) are met by units that deliver and approve continuing education programming.