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A Celebration of Nursing at Cottage Health System
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Dear Nursing Colleagues,
Welcome to the fourth edition of Nursing Excellence for 2010, published during National Nurses Week. 2010 was quite a year and there is much to be proud of. Last year, I shared with you how the economy affected our profession and nurses quickly found they could not find jobs across the country. I am happy to report that our Board of Directors supported and agreed to fund a nurse intern program, allowing us to over-hire new grads by 10 positions every six months, also allowing the interns to work and orient to the health care system. This generous support allows us to hire an additional 20 new grads a year in addition to the 50 we already hire. The economy is starting to turn around and the good news is that more nurses are able to secure jobs.
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The next exciting event was the successful launch of a new school of nursing in Santa Barbara. In the fall of 2010 Cottage Health System announced a new partnership with Cal State Channel Islands and the start of a new BSN program in our community. Cal State Channel Islands School of Nursing at Cottage Health System will open with 22 students in January of 2012. A building suite was secured in Goleta next to Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital, was gutted and re-built for the school. The 6,600 square foot suite was completed in February of 2011. The program is financially supported by the generosity of our Board of Directors. Having affiliations with two schools of nursing (Cal State Channel Islands and Santa Barbara City College) will help ensure the future of our nursing workforce over the next decade and beyond, this as our "boomers" begin to retire.
In the fall, we also launched our Professional Practice Model for Nursing. Not only was this a requirement for our Magnet Journey but it will be the lens that we use to implement all changes to nursing practice going forward. At all three of our hospitals the design and function is centered on the patient and is evidence-based. Using this approach we launched Patients First in an effort to improve the patients' perception of their hospital experience. We saw great improvements in our patient satisfaction scores and in our quality metrics. My sincere appreciation and congratulations go out to each and every one of you for your contribution to this very successful year with its many great improvements.
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| Please join me in congratulating your Nursing Excellence Committee on another beautiful edition of this publication as we celebrate Nursing at Cottage Health System.
Herb Geary, RN
Vice President, Patient Care Services / Chief Nursing Officer
Cottage Health System
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May 2011
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