Clinical practice partners, academic administrators, faculty, workforce, professional nursing leaders came together to create suggested resource and guidance documents for clinical agencies in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. These resources are intended to provide suggested guidance and support to clinical agency leaders to understand some possibilities of incorporating students and other volunteer staff pursuant to the Governor’s call for an increase in the workforce on March 30, 2020. These documents address:
- How to prepare a clinical agency to work with nursing students who may be assigned to a hospital through HealthCorps using the toolkit,
- How to educate staff in understanding the educational needs, skills, and abilities of nursing students deployed through HealthCorps in a crisis situation,
- Where the alternative care sites are located in California, and
- What documentation is needed for students to record and track their clinical experiences.
Clinical administrators, faculty, and students should be aware of individual clinical institutions’ policies on credentialing, onboarding, and scope of services students and other volunteers.
Suggested Resources:
TRAINING:
The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD) is offering a free, on-demand training for entry-level COVID-19 contact tracers. The course, Making Contact: A Training for COVID-19 Contact Tracers, will support ongoing public health agency efforts to prepare new contact tracers for their work of helping identify COVID-19 positive cases and those they’ve been in close contact with.
TOOLKITS:
Northeastern University developed the Hospital Surge Capacity Planning Model to help health systems estimate and visualize 1- to 30-day ahead hospital-specific demand for medical and ICU beds, ventilators, PPE, medications, and available staff on a rolling basis. The tool is freely available to any health system worldwide.
Preparing for Health Corps Nursing Students Tool Kit
GUIDANCE:
Staff Education, Understanding the Health Corps Student Nurse
Alternative Care Sites in California