February 18, 2002

Dear Course Directors,

            Hello! We would like to introduce ourselves. We are the Ohio State Council (OSC) Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) Trauma Committee/TNCC-ENPC. In a way of getting to know you better and for you to get to know us we want to tell you a little about ourselves. The Ohio State Council is comprised of Representatives from each of the ENA Chapters in Ohio. One of the functions of the Council is to work with issues that confront all emergency nurses across the state. Another function is to hold educational programs relevant to emergency nurses. Our charge as the committee on trauma/TNCC-ENPC is to address issues related to trauma in Ohio.

            Our committee purpose:

1)    Monitor trauma related issues within the state and communicate with legislators or other state members as to our role in trauma patient care and how we hope it will be handled. This includes being a resource and active participant in many state committees.

2)   Communicate with members in Ohio regarding any trauma issues and gather their feedback.

3)   National ENA has charged us with monitoring QA issues related to the delivery of the TNCC and ENPC courses that they have developed. We also can help with dissemination of these courses. We have tried to keep this QA process as simple as possible. We monitor evaluation of the individual instructors and the courses that are conducted in Ohio. Instructors must meet the 3.0 level of evaluation consistently and teach their required number of courses. We are then charged with helping any instructor who does not meet these requirements in remediation if necessary, or in improving their teaching abilities.

                        We also monitor courses for compliance with National ENA standards of delivery. 
                        We may also monitor courses and
instructors when we are in attendance at classes.

4)   We provide an Instructor Course at a minimum of once a year and on request to help prepare new instructors. We then complete the evaluation of these instructor candidates by monitoring them at a regular TNCC provider course.

5)   We can be of assistance in helping locate courses for those seeking course enrollment. All courses should be open to at least 1-2 persons outside the institution or ENA membership.

6)   We are a resource when there are concerns regarding course delivery or questions about how a course should be taught.

7)   We also can be of assistance in delivery of information on changes in courses developed by National.

8)   Establish that all Course Directors are ENA members.

   
The Course Directors' responsibilities are:

1)    Identifying potential course instructors during a provider course. These folks should have some teaching experience, be involved in care of trauma patients, be committed to teaching at least two courses or more a year, preferably be involved in their professional nurses association or in their profession beyond everyday work, be knowledgeable and personable and meet requirements established by National ENA for Instructor Potential.

2)  *** Send copies of the cumulative evaluations or copies of the evaluations of the instructors and course itself to the State Committee Chair following each Provider Course. This is our way of monitoring individual instructors/courses.

                                    TNCC  -     Dee Hart, R.N., BSN, CEN
                                                        e-mail - deehart@raex.com
                                                        1859 Steffy Road
                                                        Suffield, Ohio  44260-8825

                                    ENPC -      Connie Dishon, MSN, RN, CEN

                                                        Center for Nursing Excellence

                                                        Education Coordinator

                                                        2222 Philadelphia Dr

                                                        Dayton, OH 45406-1891

                                                        cdishon@shp-dayton.org

3)   Send concerns regarding instructors or courses  or questions to the State Trauma Committee.

4)   All Course Directors must be ENA members.

              Our aim in this letter is to get everyone on the same page and let you know who we are. We would like to help with the flow of communication regarding trauma issues in Ohio. Look for information in The Buckeye Beat, www.ohioena.org or www.ena.org.

            We look forward to working more closely with you in the future. If you have questions or concerns get in touch with us at the above addresses.

            Thanks,

              Ohio State Trauma Committee ENA

            Dee Hart, Nancie Bechtel Co-Chairs.

    

OHIO ENA TRAUMA NEWSLETTER

15 February, 2002

     Hopefully by now you have received the letter from National about the additional changes to TNCC/ENPC applications that were effective February 1, 2002. Thanks to all who submitted letters and concerns. We, as the State Council Trauma Committee did not get our letter in on time, but do have some additional concerns that we are drafting to National. If you have any please let me know ASAP (deehart@raex.com).

Here are a couple of Helpful hints for all Course Directors: 

1.      Students must have books at least 30 days ahead of time.  (If National is not sending them to you on time let me know). If the student signs up for the class after the 30 days (which should be discouraged), be sure they know that the books were available and would have reached them before.

2.     In your introductory letter, or data to Dept. Managers, remind the students that they must come prepared. They will not be able to learn what we are teaching them in class, they need to be familiar with the data ahead of time.

3.     Address the issue of “No Shows” also set up a system with your Dept. Managers if possible and let the students know ahead of time that they must show up on the day of class because we still must pay $25.00 processing fee if their name was on the list. Some of the things that we have done (as suggestions):

a.    Don’t allow substitutes after the 30 days

b.   Assign the people to a work schedule just as if they were scheduled on the unit,
and if they don’t show it is counted against them, as is being tardy

c.   Make the student individually pay the processing fee - or it will automatically 
be deducted from their pay

4.     Warn the students in your introductory letter about environment in the rooms, they should come prepared for any temperature “Wear layered..”

Hopefully some of these helpful hints will address issues that come up regarding payment and evaluation data for those who are new to the development of this program. For you who are more experienced - if you have other solutions to these problems, let us know and we can add them to our next newsletter.

  Thanks, OSC Trauma Committee