Partnering to Meet Training Needs: A Communicable-Disease Continuing Education Course for Public Health Nurses in North Carolina

Abstract

to create a free continuing education course in communicable-disease surveillance and outbreak investigations for public health nurses. The course was a competency-based curriculum with 14 weeks of Internet-based instruction, culminating in a two-day classroom-based skills demonstration.In spring 2006, the course became mandatory for all public health nurses who spend at least three-fourths of their time on tasks related to communicable diseases. As of December 2006, 177 nurses specializing in communicable diseases from 74 North Carolina counties had completed the course. Evaluations indicated that participants showed statistically significant improvements in self-perceived confidence to perform competencies addressed by the course. This course has become a successful model that combines academic expertise in curriculum development and teaching technologies with practical expertise in course content and audience needs. Through a combination of Internet and classroom instruction, this course has delivered competency-based training to the public health professionals who perform as frontline epidemiologists throughout North Carolina.

Preferred modalities for delivering continuing education to the public health workforce: a scoping review

“…We identified public health training programs delivered in over 11 countries: Australia, 10,16,17 Bolivia, 18 Brazil, 19 Canada, [20][21][22] Greece, 23 the Islamic Republic of Iran, 24 Mexico, 25 Rwanda, 26,27 Uganda, 28 the United Kingdom 29 and the United States of America (USA). [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] One program offered trainings in over 77 countries, 46 and another trained participants in Austria, Lithuania and the Netherlands. 9 Within the past 7 years, 19 of these articles were published.…”

Outcome-Based Workforce Development and Education in Public Health

“…Adults-whether public health graduate students, participants in experiential learning fellowships in public health, or public health professionals in continuing education courses-expect to apply the competencies achieved in their program to the workplace (2,60). If competency or the instructional experience is deemed irrelevant or ineffectual, adults will derive no professional benefit from the experience.…”

“…Adult learning principles also implicitly or explicitly undergird the design of many continuing education courses designed for public health professionals (2,36,68). Although little has been formally documented regarding the use and effectiveness of adult learning principles in such programs and the impact of not using such principles, these programs have been highly successful in developing the future public health workforce (53,54,61,81).…”

Developing Blended Online and Classroom Strategies to Deliver an Occupational Health Nursing Overview Course in a Multi-State Region in the United States

“…A hybrid continuing education course for public health nurses included online modules with a classroom session. Participants reported that the Internet-based lectures and classroom exercise improved their learning (Alexander et al, 2008). Emerging research shows that this approach produces relatively equal or better learning results compared with traditional classroom learning.…”