Paper
Thursday, 20 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Community-Based Care Initiatives
Linking Clinical Practice to Curriculum Development in Healthcare for the Homeless
Constance Brehm, PhD, FNP, RN and Felicitas A. Dela Cruz, RN, DNSc, FAANP. School of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA, USA
Learning Objective #1: Describe how data generated from a school of nursing homeless outreach clinic is utilized to guide curriculum development.
Learning Objective #2: Adapt an evidenced based curriculum for advanced practice nursing students to prepare them to offer health care for the homeless.
Introduction and Purpose: Homelessness continues to affect a significant number of the U.S. population, as many as 2 million on any given night. To keep our social contract to serve the vulnerable, nurse practitioners and NP educators are called to address the health needs of the homeless. There is little information in the literature regarding how to integrate concepts of homeless health care into NP educational programs. The purpose of this presentation is to describe how data from a homeless outreach clinic were used to guide curriculum development and integration in the NP Program at Azusa Pacific University. Setting and Population: For the past eight years the APU School of Nursing has operated a weekly outreach clinic for the homeless through a local winter shelter program. The clinic director is a full-time faculty member and the clinic is staffed by nurse practitioner students and faculty who provide the outreach health care in the shelter setting. Total patient encounters for this clinic now exceeds 1000 for the eight seasons of operation. Approximately 80 NP students and eight NP faculty have participated in the clinic. Methods: At the close of each winter season faculty analyze data from the clinic including: demographics of the patients, presenting complaints, diagnoses, treatments, health education topics, and types of referrals. Follow-up data are also analyzed. Utilizing this practice information, the faculty developed a curriculum entitled, "Health Care for the Homeless." The curriculum addresses the most common health problems identified from the practice data an is now integrated into the clinical courses of the nurse practitioner program at APU. An outline of the curriculum will be provided.

See more of Community-Based Care Initiatives
See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)