Thursday, 30 January 2014

U of A nursing faculty joins gerontological excellence body


The University of Alberta faculty of nursing has joined the National Hartford Centers of Gerontological Nursing Excellence (NHCGNE), the first school outside the U.S. to do so.
The organization’s mission is to enhance and sustain the capacity and competency of nurses to provide quality care to older adults through faculty development, advancing gerontological nursing science, facilitating adoption of best practices, fostering leadership, and designing and shaping policy.
To be invited to join, schools of nursing must have demonstrated a commitment to gerontological nursing and share a vision of optimal health and quality of life for older adults.
“It is exciting that our expertise has been acknowledged internationally by the NHCGNE,” said Dr. Anita Molzahn, dean of the nursing faculty. “As one of the leading research-intensive nursing faculties in Canada, we have a strong cohort of researchers interested in aging and gerontological nursing.
“With 25 per cent of our faculty members -- many of whom are leading scholars -- focusing their research and scholarship primarily on care of older adults, this partnership will facilitate future research activity and faculty development relating to gerontological nursing.”
The main goals of the National Hartford Centers of Gerontological Excellence are to increase the cadre of academic geriatric nurses, build leadership capacity in academic geriatric nurses, and build national collaboration and excitement about geriatric/gerontological nursing.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the organization was started in 2000 with support from the John A. Hartford Foundation, and subsequently attracted additional funding partners in the Atlantic Philanthropies and Mayday Fund.
These institutions have invested over $80 million in national efforts to build academic gerontological nursing capacity through their support. The program has supported more than 200 pre-doctoral and postdoctoral nursing scholars who have stimulated excitement about the field among nursing students and practicing nurses. They are the leaders who will shape future care for older persons.
The John A. Hartford Foundation is a private philanthropy working to improve the health of older people established by in 1929. John A. Hartford and his brother, George L. Hartford, both former chief executives of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (the A&P grocery chain), left the bulk of their estates to the foundation when they died in the 1950s.
Today the foundation seeks to put geriatrics expertise to work in all health care settings by advancing practice change and innovation, supporting team-based care through interdisciplinary education of all health care providers, supporting policies and regulations that promote better care, and developing and disseminating new evidence-based models that deliver better, more cost-effective health care.

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