Healthcare professionals need continuing education, not only to stay certified for their current jobs and provide patients with the most complete and up-to-date care, but also to prepare for future opportunities.

 

Lancaster General College of Nursing & Health Sciences (LGC) offers award-winning education to meet both of those needs. The College’s Institute for Professional Development (IPD) expands Lancaster General’s tradition of educating competent, caring and socially responsible healthcare practitioners. From its beginnings in the Department of Education and Professional Development, the Institute has been a division of the College since July 2007.

 

Nurses Lisa Miller and Diana Mundey recently completed a class through the Institute for Professional Development to better informed about various management fields, including leadership strategies, healthcare delivery systems, finances, speaking to influence others, computer applications and shadowing experience.

The Institute has been recognized by Training magazine as one of the top 125 training organizations in the U.S. for four consecutive years (2004-2008).

 

 

“The Institute for Professional Development continues a long tradition of providing quality healthcare education for employees at every level of the Lancaster General system,” says Bonnie Jackson-Knox, Vice President of the Institute. “Our efforts have been well-received—more than 15,000 people attend our classes and conferences every year.”

 

The Institute is comprised of these divisions:

 

“Our various centers deliver education in different ways,” Bonnie says. “Some provide courses offered in a classroom setting and others offer conferences, computer-based instruction or clinical education, in which staff receive one-on-one, on-the-job education and training.”

 

Kurt Doan, Director of the Center for Continuing Education, adds that the Institute also looks outside the hospital to find the needs of the community.

 

“Our main goal is to provide for the educational requirements of the hospital staff, but we also try to identify audiences outside of the hospital that need education,” Kurt says. “We are one of few sources for this type of education in Lancaster County. Some healthcare professionals have difficulty finding courses that are relevant to what they do. Our job is to fill that void.”

 

 

Two healthcare professionals, Diana Mundey and Lisa Miller, found what they needed through the Institute’s program offerings. Diana and Lisa are nurses at Lancaster General who wanted to prepare for the future. Both enrolled in the popular Aspiring Leader program.

 

During the program’s six-week curriculum, they learned about effective team building, healthcare delivery systems, management finance, speaking to influence others and computer-desktop applications for leaders. They also participated in a “leadership shadowing experience” in which they accompanied an experienced healthcare professional on a typical work day.

 

Diana, an RN in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, will use the education when she moves into healthcare management in the future.

 

“The Aspiring Leader program has helped me to become a more rounded individual and has exposed me to the whole healthcare environment, which is something you don’t always see when working in a specialized nursing unit,” she says. “I’ll be able to use my new knowledge of finance, budgeting, and other areas of leadership in the future as well as in the work that I do now.”

 

Lisa, an RN in the Cardiac Rehab Unit, enrolled in the program to broaden her overall knowledge with the Aspiring Leader curriculum.

 

“The program was a good opportunity for me because the classes were very interesting,” Lisa says. “I learned practical things that I can use in my work right away and the instructors were well-versed in their fields. The courses also gave me the opportunity to network with people from many parts of the organization.”

 

For more information on the Institute for Professional Development, click here.