Helene Fuld Leadership Program for the Advancement of Patient Safety & Quality

Overview

The Fuld Fellows Program

The Helene Fuld Leadership Program for the Advancement of Patient Safety and Quality (The Fuld Fellows Program) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON) is designed to prepare a select group of pre-licensure nursing students for future leadership at the bedside and in other care settings, who have exceptional competencies for promoting quality and safety, particularly among older patients. This program provides academic for students who have a special interest in developing quality and safety skills beyond those ensured by the current curriculum. These selected students, Fuld Fellows, are given unique opportunities to capitalize on the intellectual and institutional resources that distinguish Johns Hopkins as a leader in healthcare quality and safety. The Fuld Fellows Program provides each Fuld Fellow with the following: 1) broad, evidence-based, quality/patient safety interprofessional education; 2) practical quality/patient safety learning experiences with Johns Hopkins improvement teams; and 3) mentoring to bridge theory and practice. This program will help strengthen nursing education nationwide by offering an exemplary academic model and innovative curriculum for building competencies in quality and safety that can be replicated or adapted at other leading institutions.

Program goals

• Provide broad, evidence based, quality/patient safety training

• Provide practical quality/patient safety experience

• Provide mentoring to bridge theory and practice

Benefits

• Enriched curriculum in patient quality and safety

• Service-learning activities with interprofessional teams

• Quality and safety research opportunities

Opportunities & Eligibility

Opportunities

Capitalize on the combined resources of the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, the top-ranked Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the JHU schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Public Health. You’ll participate in the highest quality interprofessional health education, research, and patient care delivery.

• Broad, evidence-based training in quality improvement and patient safety

• Practical quality improvement and patient safety experience

• Mentors from the School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and the Armstrong Institute will guide you and help bridge the theory and practice

Program Eligibility section:

• Students who will have successfully completed their first semester of the JHU SON MSN-Entry to Nursing Practice program with a GPA of >. 3.0 at program start are eligible to apply. Applicants who are admitted into the program and subsequently don’t meet program eligibility will have their invitation to join the program withdrawn

• Students must commit to a two-semester enrollment for program completion and be willing to participate in all program activities

• Students may not co-enroll into the Research Honors Program or the Birthing Companions Program

Selection Process

Funding Source

Helene Fuld Health Trust Background

The Helene Fuld Health Trust’s mission is to support and promote the health, welfare, and education of student nurses. The Trust is the nation’s largest private funder devoted exclusively to nursing students and nursing education.

In 1935, Dr. Leonhard Felix Fuld and his sister, Florentine, contributed $5,000 each to create a foundation to honor the memory of their mother, Helene Shwab Fuld, who had died in 1923. Born in New York City in 1883, Dr. Fuld attended Columbia University, from which he received his bachelor’s degree, law degree, and doctorate. Although he worked as an editor, civil servant, and securities analyst, his lifelong passion was public health and sanitation.

During her lifetime, Helene Fuld had also been passionately interested in health issues, and the foundation named for her was originally dedicated to the “relief of poverty, suffering, sickness and distress.” In 1961, Dr. Fuld limited the foundation’s focus to “the improvement of the health and welfare of student nurses, and the term ‘nurse’ …is hereby defined as a person who gives bedside care to the sick and injured” a mission he had been thinking about for some time. Dr. Fuld noted to Trenton Sunday Times Advertiser: “After careful consideration and because of my intense interest in sanitation and health, I chose to pinpoint my efforts in the field of nurse health, which had received comparatively little attention up to that time.” Throughout the course of his involvement with making grants to nursing schools, Dr. Fuld often visited the schools – several of which renamed themselves in honor of his mother – and spoke with nursing students in an effort to learn more about their needs and to ensure that high standards were being met.

As the country recovered from the Depression, Dr. Fuld and his sister both made further contributions to the foundation. After World War II, with the economy booming, the Fuld foundation’s assets grew geometrically – from $4.8 million in 1952, to more than $35 million in 1965. In 1961, Dr. Fuld – concerned that the foundation continue after his death or incapacity – decided that he would eventually turn the assets over to a charitable trust to be known as the Helene Fuld Health Trust.

Program Requirements

Program Requirements

• Fellows will be enrolled in a 1 credit (pass/fail) seminar each of the two semesters.

• Each semester, Fellows will:

  • Be paired via self-selection with a QI/Patient safety-focused mentor and their project

  • Complete 40 hours/semester working as a member of this QI/patient safety project team with at least 20 hours being completed by mid-term

  • Attend discussion-based seminars and complete required logs/class activities

  • Present in class a project update

• In addition, at program completion, Fellows will participate in a scientific poster-podium presentation of their project progress and/or results (if applicable)

Fuld Leadership Program Faculty

• Fuld mentors are comprised of healthcare practice and system leaders who have an established scholarship focused on health-based quality improvement, patient safety, and implementation-based research

  • Also change the existing sentence to “The Fuld mentors bring knowledge…”

• Sarah Allgood,  PhD, RN: Program Director

  • Dr. Sarah Allgood is an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has over 13 years’ experience as a med-surg and research nurse. Her focus is on improving pain and symptom management in individuals with life-limiting chronic disease, specifically individuals with cystic fibrosis. Dr. Allgood’s QI work is centered interdisciplinary collaborations with teams at the School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Hospital and vary from improving telehealth clinic visits, developing safe medication discontinuation processes, and determining the effects of visiting hours on nursing quality indicators.

 

Testimonial

 

Have a quality improvement/patient safety-focused project and interested in becoming a mentor?

Please email Sarah at [email protected] for more information.

We admit two cohorts of Fellows per year. The call for mentors is released in October for cohorts starting the program in late January and in March for cohorts starting the program in late May.

This Qualtrics survey link will give you access to the mentor application year-round, but please note that applications are only reviewed twice a year during the call for mentors:

View Survey