Last year, Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport welcomed three nurses to its staff—one to acute care, one to intensive care and one to the outpatient surgery unit. The Newport hires, together with seven others hired by SHS, were the happy result of Samaritan's collaboration with the Oregon Coast Community College’s new nursing program.
In addition to supporting the development of the nursing program financially, Samaritan provides the clinical settings and experiences for both first- and second-year nursing students, who typically spend two days a week at the hospitals.
“We want to get the new graduates up and running,” said Jessica Carver, RN, BSN, assistant manager of the Newport hospital’s medical/surgical department. “This is a nurse’s opportunity to have a truly well-rounded experience."
“We invest so much time and energy with the new nurses so that they have valuable experiences to carry over to whatever they face,” Carver continued. “We hope they’ll be compassionate and understanding of procedures that guide patient safety and that they’ll be comfortable interacting with various departments in the hospital.”
Health occupations education relationships occur between Samaritan and Linn-Benton Community College (LBCC), as well. Samaritan provides clinical sites and financial assistance for the college’s nursing and certified nursing assistant programs. It also donates equipment for the college’s polysomnography program, which began last year to train students to be sleep disorders technicians.
Still another collaboration that recently won a national award for LBCC is the Diagnostic Imaging Distance Education Program. It has become a model for new program development, according to Ann Malosh, dean of LBCC’s Health Occupations and Workforce Education Division.
“Around 2002, the state had a desperate need for X-ray technicians,” Malosh explained.
“At that time we (the college) were creating a radiology program, but we didn’t have the funds to build a lab—and that’s where Samaritan Health Services came in,” Malosh continued.
The
Lebanon Community Hospital Foundation provided $280,000 in seed money and Samaritan provided an additional $309,000 to build a radiology technology classroom on the Lebanon hospital’s campus. Samaritan also provided two offices at the hospital for LBCC faculty.
“The lab is beautiful and it houses digital equipment that allows us to provide distance education to eight other community colleges” Malosh said. “We’ve got students from Bend, Tillamook, Pendleton … we’re meeting the needs of the entire state and allowing communities to ‘grow their own’ technicians, so to speak.”