Sacred Heart University will begin offering an online certificate program this spring for advanced practice nurses who want to study telehealth technology. While a new interest in telehealth has been sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic”™s impact on health care practices, the subject is hardly a new notion.
“Telehealth actually has been around for 30 to 40 years,” said Dr. Donna McHaney, clinical associate professor and director of the online family nurse practitioner and doctor of nursing practice programs at the university”™s Dr. Susan L. Davis, RN & Richard J. Henley College of Nursing. “It can be anything from telephone visits to where you do a full head-to-toe assessment with telehealth equipment.”
McHaney, speaking in an upcoming interview on Westfair Video Conversations ”” the YouTube channel of the Business Journal ”” noted the new program was in the planning stages long before Covid-19 came about.
“This program has been under development for about a year and a half,” she said. “We”™ve been working on developing the program for advanced practice nurses, particularly nurse practitioners. And we”™ve worked toward making sure that we have the content we need and the expertise we need to teach the courses as well.”
McHaney explained that telehealth technology has advanced to the point that patients can have medical professionals listen to their lungs and view their eyes and ears with the same thoroughness as being in-person at a clinical visit. In formulating the program, the university considered the various modalities of telehealth and sought to incorporate it thoroughly into its nursing curriculum.
The new program consists of four eight-week courses spanning two semesters, with the first three courses being conducted online.
“We”™ll be teaching students about what telehealth really is, beginning with what it could be for them in their clinic,” McHaney continued. “We”™ll teach them about reimbursement, about how to set up equipment. In the last eight weeks, they”™ll actually do clinical hours out in the field with some partners who will be letting them experience telehealth.”
Sacred Heart”™s spring semester begins on Jan. 4 and McHaney said her department is already taking admissions for the new program.
“I”™ve interviewed a lot of individuals,” she said. “We”™re getting a lot of feedback from it ”” it”™s very popular.”
McHaney said the introduction of the telehealth program is coming at a time when the university is fielding more interest from students who are looking to expand their careers within nursing.
“In my particular programs, we have seen an increase in individuals wanting to change their career from just regular nurses to nurse practitioners so that they can help provide that care that”™s needed in the industry,” she said. “There are a lot of people who come to nursing anyway, but I think because of Covid there are a lot of individuals who want to contribute and they”™re looking at nursing programs as a whole, not just family nurse practitioner programs.”
McHaney is eager for the program to help raise greater awareness of telehealth options not only among patients, but also practitioners who are still new to the idea.
“There were also health care providers that were like, ”˜Oh, gosh, what are we going to do? How are we going to handle this?”™” she said.
“They”™re new to even using Zoom or some of these other types of platforms for telehealth. I think it”™s been a learning experience for everybody ”” and that”™s why the telehealth certificate is such a good thing because we can train people to have that knowledge and skills to incorporate it into their practice.”
