September 7, 2007

Evergreen Valley College News

Institute for Business Performance and Kaiser Permanente receive
$800,000 grant for multimedia-based nurse training

The San José/Evergreen Com-munity College District’s (SJECCD) Institute for Business Performance (IBP) has been awarded $800,000 by the State Chancellor's Office to develop a multifaceted education program for nurses employed at Kaiser Permanente (KP) in San José.

The grant will fund a simulation lab in the Technology Center at San José City College (SJCC), with KP providing technical assistance in the development of the curricula and simulation lab. Other important provisions of this grant include developing multimedia nursing curricula, training six KP nurse educators and staff and up to six community college healthcare faculty members in simulation pedagogy; and deliver state-of-the-art simulation training to 400 nurses at Kaiser Permanente San José.

“We are excited about partnering with Kaiser Permanente San Jose on this innovative project,” said IBP’s Executive Director Carol Coen. “The Simulation Training Program supports KP’s professional development needs and will further establish our District as a leader in creating cutting-edge workforce development programs for the health care community in Silicon Valley.”

Nurses learn in a safe environment how to assess complex medical issues without impacting the well being of patients.

SJECCD Chancellor Rosa Pérez said, “This kind of partnership between education and industry is actually a partnership with our entire community. As we improve the quality of nurse training, we improve the quality of life of our families, seniors, and children.”

KP San José’s Director of Education Katherine Ricossa, RN, MS, who is developing the training, feels that the grant “addresses a quality assurance subject identified by KP San Jose: helping its nurses access state-of-the-art training that reflects their day to day medical experiences. The project will create four four-hour modules of multimedia training using human simulators capable of 72,000 physiological responses. These simulated scenarios offer reality without risk.”

Project leadership will be provided by IBP’s Dr. Ingrid Thompson, and overseen on a daily basis by a professional nursing expert yet to be named.

“IBP’s Simulation Training Program will further enhance SJECCD’s healthcare education and training programs provided at both SJCC’s and Evergreen Valley College (EVC) campuses,” said Thompson. “Once the training is developed, this new educational model will be shared with other health care facilities throughout Santa Clara County.”

The Institute for Business Performance is the workforce intermediary for the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District and has provided customized training, professional development, skills upgrade training, and employability services to Silicon Valley’s businesses and workforce since 1988.

An industry leader, Kaiser Permanente operates in nine states and the District of Columbia and is the largest not-for-profit managed care organization in the United States. Kaiser Permanente San José is a full service, 248 licensed-bed hospital with outpatient medical offices.