Other Titles

Symposium: Improving Health Outcomes in Haiti through Nursing Education

Abstract

Session presented on Sunday, July 27, 2014:

Purpose: Haiti is facing a serious healthcare delivery crisis (Jerome & Ivers, 2010). The Haitian American Nurses Association (HANA) is addressing this issue by collaborating with corporations/organizations in order to initiate projects that will transform Haiti's health care. Two main focuses of HANA have been community health and disaster preparedness in Haiti. The purpose of the Faculte des Sciences Infirmieres de Leogane (FSIL)/Disaster Preparedness and community projects, sponsored by HANA, is to establish sustainable non-governmental policies and procedures for disasters at FSIL and the surrounding community, through Worldwide Community First Responder, Inc (WCFR).

Methods: The community health projects were created to ensure that FSIL students provide necessary community health care. WCFR nurse educators guided FSIL students to assess community health through health surveys and to analyze both access to and adequacy of existing community resources. The importance of health promotion in the community was emphasized.

Results: The results were very promising. The FSIL/Disaster Preparedness and community projects engaged nurse educators and student nurses in making FSIL and its surrounding community safer, more prepared, and more resilient for future disasters. It also contributed to the improvement of the health of the community in Leogane, Haiti.

Conclusion: The collaboration between HANA and WCFR has proven to be beneficial for all stakeholders. Being that nursing is such a vital segment of the healthcare delivery system, more emphasis should be put on building capacity through collaboration. Similar partnerships between nursing organizations and corporations must be sought and established.

Author Details

Jacqueline Cassagnol, RN, MSN, PMC; Odiane Medacier, MSN, APRN, FNP-C

Sigma Membership

Unknown

Lead Author Affiliation

Worldwide Community First Responder, Inc., Nanuet, New York, USA

Type

Presentation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

N/A

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

Collaboration, Healthcare, Global

Conference Name

25th International Nursing Research Congress

Conference Host

Sigma Theta Tau International

Conference Location

Hong Kong

Conference Year

2014

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

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Collaborating globally to transform Haiti's healthcare

Hong Kong

Session presented on Sunday, July 27, 2014:

Purpose: Haiti is facing a serious healthcare delivery crisis (Jerome & Ivers, 2010). The Haitian American Nurses Association (HANA) is addressing this issue by collaborating with corporations/organizations in order to initiate projects that will transform Haiti's health care. Two main focuses of HANA have been community health and disaster preparedness in Haiti. The purpose of the Faculte des Sciences Infirmieres de Leogane (FSIL)/Disaster Preparedness and community projects, sponsored by HANA, is to establish sustainable non-governmental policies and procedures for disasters at FSIL and the surrounding community, through Worldwide Community First Responder, Inc (WCFR).

Methods: The community health projects were created to ensure that FSIL students provide necessary community health care. WCFR nurse educators guided FSIL students to assess community health through health surveys and to analyze both access to and adequacy of existing community resources. The importance of health promotion in the community was emphasized.

Results: The results were very promising. The FSIL/Disaster Preparedness and community projects engaged nurse educators and student nurses in making FSIL and its surrounding community safer, more prepared, and more resilient for future disasters. It also contributed to the improvement of the health of the community in Leogane, Haiti.

Conclusion: The collaboration between HANA and WCFR has proven to be beneficial for all stakeholders. Being that nursing is such a vital segment of the healthcare delivery system, more emphasis should be put on building capacity through collaboration. Similar partnerships between nursing organizations and corporations must be sought and established.