Posted: 7/14/2010
Nine nurses graduated from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing’s (JHUSON) specialized Business of Nursing (BON) program on July 8 prepared to apply sound business principles to healthcare delivery.
This innovative program, designed to address the changing financial and managed care challenges facing nurses, also prepares them for current and expanding roles in the increasingly complex environment of integrated health services.
Through the unique program, students receive a dynamic learning experience that teaches them how to become better patient advocates. Students acquire the skills they need to adapt to the business-related challenges in today’s healthcare atmosphere. “The program allows nurses to gain a better understanding of the changing financial healthcare environment as well as learn how to forecast and influence favorable patient outcomes,” says Dr. Maryann Fralic, DrPH, RN, FAAN, Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at the JHUSON and a former vice president of nursing at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
“The BON prepared me to express myself to help provide the right kind of care to patients,” Ron Langlotz (BON ’06) notes. “You definitely need people who can take those two pieces — bedside care and business — to the board room. Nurses are the ones who carry that ball. If we can’t communicate in the board room, we’re not going to get what our patients need.” Today Langlotz uses both his nursing skills and his business acumen as nurse manager of the Johns Hopkins Hospital radiology department.
“I know the bedside and the critical care aspect of patient care,” Langlotz adds. “But healthcare is a business. As political winds shift in the healthcare arena, more and more business-attuned nurses will be necessary.
This year’s class agrees with Langlotz. Class spokesperson Nancy Stanley, speaking at the July 8 ceremony, noted “This experience has provided us with the necessary tools and skills needed to ensure that we have a place at the table when decisions that affect nursing are made.”
This 12-credit, 10-month post-baccalaureate and post-master’s option is a partnership between JHUSON and the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. Applications for the fall 2010 semester are currently being accepted. Visit www.nursing.jhu.edu to apply.