Grant Sparks New High-Tech Links
NURSING SCHOOL ADDS TWO SITES TO DISTANCE LEARNING NETWORK 

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., July 22 -- The University of Virginia's
School of Nursing is adding two new sites to its "distance-learning"
Primary Care Nurse Practitioner training program, thanks to a $945,739
grant from the federal government.
	Classes taught in Charlottesville will be seen at Clinch
Valley College, in far Southwest Virginia, while students at
Washington, D.C.-based Howard University will attend classes at the
U.Va. Northern Virginia Distance Classroom in Fairfax. Distance
learning enables students sitting in classrooms located elsewhere to
watch teachers on video monitors and interact with them in "real
time," asking questions as if they were in the same classroom with the
instructors. 
	The program is a way for the U.Va. nursing faculty to enrich
the education of students at other colleges and universities,
according to Dr. Julie Novak, director of U.Va.'s Primary Care Nurse
Practitioner Program. Novak wrote the grant proposal which was funded
by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of
Health Professions, Division of Nursing.
	Two previous grants from the Virginia Health Care Foundation
have enabled the Nursing School to boost the number of its nurse
practitioner faculty from nine to 17 (Phase I, 1995) and to conduct a
pilot test of distance-learning programs in Northern Virginia and
Roanoke (Phase II, 1996). Nursing schools from seven other Virginia
institutions of higher education participated in this statewide
collaboration, which Novak directed.
	The long-distance program's just-funded Phase III has several
elements. In the first of three years, it will bring to Clinch Valley
College a program that combines a master's degree in Primary Health
Care Nursing with certification as a family nurse practitioner. In the
second and third years, a post-master's degree program for primary
care nurse practitioners will be added.
	Howard University's Nursing School already has a family nurse
practitioner program, but by building on the pilot program funded by
the Virginia Health Care Foundation in Northern Virginia, U.Va.'s
distance-learning program will enable Howard to provide its students
with experience in rural health care. In the second and third years of
the project, interested students at Howard are expected to make use of
U.Va.'s distance-learning facility in nearby Fairfax and enjoy new
opportunities for clinical experience in rural Northwestern Virginia. 
	At the same time, Howard's participation in the program will
make it easier for students in Charlottesville and Southwest Virginia
to gain clinical experience with an inner-city, underserved population
in Washington. The collaboration is expected to provide a diverse,
mutually enriching experience in classrooms and clinical settings. 
	Most family nurse practitioners hold master's degrees in
nursing and are nationally certified to provide health care.
Historically, they have focused on primary health care -- providing
basic health care for infants, children and adults in a wide range of
settings. Primary care consists of taking health histories and
performing physical exams, diagnosing and treating common acute
illnesses and injuries, providing immunizations, managing common
chronic illnesses, ordering and interpreting X-rays and other
laboratory tests, and counselling patients on health promotion and
disease prevention.
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July 21, 1997
	For more information, call Dr. Julie Novak, director of the
Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program, at (804) 924-0130, or Karen
Ratzlaff, public relations officer, at (804) 924-0084. Television
reporters should call our TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.