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Honors Unique Resource for Nurses Who Care For Older Adults
New York, N.Y. — GeroNurseOnline.org, the Web site of the Nurse Competence in Aging (NCA) initiative, was selected as a winner in the Spring/Summer 2005 World Wide Web Health Awards. This program recognizes the best health information Web sites for consumers and professionals. GeroNurseOnline.org received a Silver Award for health promotion/disease & injury prevention information. It was among more than 200 entries judged by a panel of health information experts.
A one-of-a-kind Web site, GeroNurseOnline.org was conceived and created by the three organizations that make up the Nurse Competence in Aging initiative: The American Nurses Association, American Nurses Credentialing Center and The John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing in the New York University College of Nursing. The Web site, launched in July 2004, is a sophisticated resource for nurses who wish to learn more about geriatric syndromes, their possible causes, and treatments, and to translate that knowledge for the immediate benefit of their patients. The Web site was designed by Jasper Design in New York City.
“We were delighted to participate in the World Wide Web Health Awards Program and are honored to have been selected as a winner,” said Linda Stierle, MSN, RN, CNAA,BC, the chief executive officer of the American Nurses Association (ANA). “GeroNurseOnline.org indeed represents a tremendous advance in helping nurses who care for older adults have quick, easy access to critical information that was once only existed in books, journals, and scattered throughout the Web.”
As the population of the United States ages, the majority of patients in many U.S. hospitals and long-term care facilities are over age 65. Nurses provide the bulk of their care, yet less than one percent of the nation’s nurses are certified in gerontological nursing, and many never took a course in geriatrics while in nursing school.
“GeroNurseOnline was developed in response to a considerable shortage of readily-available geriatric best practice information among the nation’s health care staff,” said Mathy Mezey, EdD, RN, FAAN, director of the Hartford Institute.
Whether searching the site by patient signs and symptoms, specific geriatric topics, or nursing specialty areas, nurses find a tremendous amount of useful, well-organized information. Other features of the site include information on becoming a certified gerontological nurse and developing a career in geriatric nursing. Visitors to the site may personalize their own homepages, enabling them to save content of interest. Nurses can also use the “email to a friend” feature to share content and resources with colleagues.
The awards program is coordinated by the Health Information Resource Center, a national clearinghouse for consumer health information programs and materials. The Center, which houses a large collection of public- and private-sector health resources, promotes the distribution of accurate, timely consumer health information materials to professionals and managers in the field.
The GeroNurseOnline Web site is one component of the Nurse Competence in Aging initiative. Nurse Competence in Aging is a five-year initiative funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies (USA) Inc., awarded to the American Nurses Association (ANA) through the American Nurses Foundation (ANF). It represents a strategic alliance between ANA, the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and The John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing in the New York University College of Nursing. Nurse Competence in Aging works with specialty nursing associations to bring geriatric knowledge to their membership and enhance members’ competence in aging.