By Jill Kranz, NISC Delegate, Middleton Senior Center, Middleton, WI

Through a partnership with the University of Wisconsin School of Nursing, the Verona Senior Center, in Verona, WI, has established a program that educates student nurses on the need for community-based health services for older adults and trains them in a real-life atmosphere, beyond the clinical hospital setting. The program also allows students to provide health support services to seniors at no cost.
 
The students work at the Verona Senior Center one day a week, conducting blood pressure screening and glucose testing and providing diabetes information, nutrition counseling, and other services. While on duty, the students eat lunch at the senior nutrition site as a way of informally interacting with the older adults and learning more about their issues and concerns. Student nurses also have the opportunity during their rotation to accompany a senior center case manager on a home visit to assess older adult needs and learn how they live and cope in the community.

“This partnership gives the student nurses a chance to see elders living in their own community as opposed to only seeing hospitalized old people,” reports Diane Lanaville, senior center director. “As healthcare providers of the future, these students need to understand that the majority of older adults live well into their 90s and remain independent and involved, living in their own homes and apartments. It also provides a mechanism by which older people can monitor health concerns without requiring they spend time in a clinic, exposed to an array of illness, and it simplifies transportation issues. The benefits of community-based health services to both the recipients and to the healthcare system are enormous, and senior centers are certainly an ideal venue.”

The program has been enhanced by a grant from the Epic Systems Corporation, headquartered in Verona, enabling the senior center to hire a nurse for 10 hours a week to continue the students’ work when they are not available. For a very low dollar, the center has been able to provide a catalog of health services that help older adults maintain an active, healthy, and independent lifestyle.

For more information, e-mail Diane Lanaville or call 608-845-7471.

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