If you are a nurse or licensed health care practitioner, you will very likely need continuing education from time to time to meet state board certification requirements. The increased demand for continuing education and licensure renewal in nursing has prompted many schools, hospitals and companies to expand and retool educational programs catering to current and potential medical personnel. Many nurses are obtaining new certifications, like Critical Care Nursing (CCRN) and Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN) at hospitals across the county, which give them the ability to earn credit while they working full-time, as well as to advance their careers and enjoy higher salaries.

Travel time has been reduced or eliminated as many universities, colleges and trade schools now offer nursing courses via the internet, enabling busy professionals to stay abreast of the many developments in the rapidly changing health care field. Distance learning for nursing professionals, including a growing number of Board-certified independent providers that offer online coursework and testing, is allowing many RNs a new flexibility in the management the demands of work and career development.

As the industry’s needs for highly skilled workers grows, influential companies and industry leaders are making it easier to obtain continuing education credits (CEU). Many companies, like FLC Nursing Classes and eMedicine, offer online medical education credits for nurses and medical professionals. In addition to market-driven demand, regulatory bodies have influenced changes in the quality of continuing medical education. These leaders include The Leapfrog Group and various State Boards of Nursing. Landmark legislation such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Joint Commission on the Regulation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has reshaped the profession as well.

Arthur Levine, President of Teachers College of Columbia University, argued in a statement issued in 2000 that the following factors would impact healthcare education in significant ways: shifting demographics, new technologies, commercial organizations entering into continued education, changing relationships between the universities and the state and federal government, the move from an industrial to an informational society, and the convergence of publishing, broadcasting, telecommunications, and education.

Mr. Levine also predicted that continuing education providers would become more numerous, more diverse, and more competitive. He foresaw that technological capabilities would encourage development of global universities that would respond quickly with high-quality education to an international student body. Brand names in higher education could be expected, Levin projected. Three kinds of universities might emerge in this environment: traditional residential; commercial virtual; and combination of the two. The combo would be the most competitive and attractive to students.

Higher education would become more individualized in that students would set the educational agenda. “Any time, any place” continuing education would be demanded. There would be a shift from teaching to learning with a focus on educational outcomes. “For profit” and other new providers who are only interested in teaching would compete with the university’s mission of teaching, research, and service. Faculty would become increasingly independent of universities. Degrees would wither in importance: competencies and skills would be list on transcripts or in portfolios. Dollars would follow students not educators.

Levine is not the only educator to make similar observations and projections. Noted strategist George Keller listed six trends that will influence the future of higher education. Birth rates in the United States are decreasing; we are becoming a geriatric society, immigration is coming from cultures that are very different from the immigrants that arrived in the past, .the American family is changing, the U.S. population is becoming increasingly inter-racial, inter-ethnic, and inter-religious, and demographic changes are creating new socioeconomic class structure.

It seems that Mr. Levine's predictions from 2000 were quite accurate.. Both the demand for new options in nursing education, and the marketplace's quick response to this demand fall in line with his analysis. FLC Nursing is proud to have positioned itself as a frontline company in the movement towards greater access and convenience in continuing education for healthcare providers.