Newswise — Loyola Medicine is joining with Chamberlain University and the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) as part of a national education and workforce solutions initiative to address critical shortages of operating room nurses suburban Chicago region.
Loyola Medicine is part of an inaugural group of three health care systems nationwide that are involved in expanding the initiative launched by Chamberlain University, which has the largest nursing school in the U.S., and the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), creators of evidence-based guidelines and education resources for perioperative practice.
Starting in early 2022, Chamberlain and AORN will launch a 16-week online training module on perioperative nursing that is designed to prepare students to acquire an educational badge in perioperative nursing. Loyola Medicine is collaborating with Chamberlain University to provide local participating students onsite opportunities to gain insight in a supervised perioperative setting.
“This initiative helps address a critical need for more nurses with a perioperative specialty and it aligns with our commitment to providing quality patient service in the Chicago area,” said Peggy Norton-Rosko, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, regional chief nursing officer for Loyola Medicine.
The initiative, designed to be aligned with perioperative industry-specific competencies defined by AORN, is a non-credit bearing program offered at no additional cost to students enrolled in Chamberlain’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program. The three health care organizations joining in the launch are Loyola Medicine; Ochsner Health; and Emory Healthcare.
The specialty badge program is designed to create a pipeline of perioperative nurses, also referred to as operating room nurses or surgical nurses, who work with surgical patients in the pre- and intra-operative process and through recovery in post-anesthesia care units. A 2021 research paper, “The State of the Perioperative Nursing Specialty Workforce,” outlines how academic partnerships with hospital facilities can address recruitment and retention challenges as well as be cost-effective. It can cost up to $120,000 to train and prepare a new perioperative nurse1, according to the research paper.
The need for perioperative nurses is expected to grow due to an increased volume of surgeries and a nationwide shortage of qualified nurses, according to AORN. Contributing to the shortage is that 20% of operating room nurses are expected to reach retirement age within the next five years, according to data collected by AORN2.
About Loyola Medicine and Trinity Health
Loyola Medicine, a member of Trinity Health, is a quaternary care system based in the western suburbs of Chicago that includes Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC), Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, MacNeal Hospital and convenient locations offering primary and specialty care services from 1,877 physicians throughout Cook, Will and DuPage counties. LUMC is a 547-licensed-bed hospital in Maywood that includes the William G. and Mary A. Ryan Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine, the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, a Level 1 trauma center, Illinois's largest burn center, a certified comprehensive stroke center and a children’s hospital. Having delivered compassionate care for over 50 years, Loyola also trains the next generation of caregivers through its teaching affiliation with Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine and Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing. Gottlieb is a 247-licensed-bed community hospital in Melrose Park with 150 physician offices, an adult day care program, the Gottlieb Center for Fitness, the Loyola Center for Metabolic Surgery and Bariatric Care and the Loyola Cancer Care & Research at the Marjorie G. Weinberg Cancer Center at Melrose Park. MacNeal Hospital is a 374-bed teaching hospital in Berwyn with advanced inpatient and outpatient medical, surgical and psychiatric services, advanced diagnostics and treatments. MacNeal has a 12-bed acute rehabilitation unit, a 25-bed inpatient skilled nursing facility, and a 68-bed behavioral health program and community clinics. MacNeal has provided quality, patient-centered care to the near west suburbs since 1919.
Trinity Health is one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic healthcare systems in the nation, serving diverse communities that include more than 30 million people across 22 states. Trinity Health includes 94 hospitals, as well as 109 continuing care locations that include PACE programs, senior living facilities and home care and hospice services. Its continuing care programs provide nearly 2.5 million visits annually. Based in Livonia, Mich., and with annual operating revenues of $18.3 billion and assets of $26.2 billion, the organization returns $1.1 billion to its communities annually in the form of charity care and other community benefit programs. Trinity employs about 133,000 colleagues, including 7,800 employed physicians and clinicians. Committed to those who are poor and underserved in its communities, Trinity is known for its focus on the country's aging population. As a single, unified ministry, the organization is the innovator of Senior Emergency Departments, the largest not-for-profit provider of home health care services—ranked by number of visits—in the nation, as well as the nation’s leading provider of PACE (Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly) based on the number of available programs.
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