Grove City Medical Center News
GCMC Nurse Selected to Participate in Nurse Navigator Fellowship Program
December 21, 2005
Kimberle A. Barker, RN, BSN, Clinical Coordinator of Surgical Services at Grove City Medical Center, recently received notification that she has been selected to the 2005 Nurse Navigator Fellowship, sponsored by the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in conjunction with Health Careers Futures. The Nurse Navigator program is designed to enhance the professional nurse’s expertise through a year-long series of challenging educational workshops, modeled after lessons learned in business and industry.
In the coming year, Barker will complete training in Perfecting Patient Care, which will include sections on work redesign principles, problem solving, designing units for safety and leading patient-focused care teams.
Barker, who has worked as a registered nurse in Pennsylvania for over 26 years, earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Carlow University, where she is currently enrolled in the Master of Science in Nursing program. Throughout the program, Barker’s special area of professional interest, patient safety, particularly in the area of patient identification, will be the focus of her learning experience through the fellowship.
Karen A. Bray, Vice President of Patient Care Services for Grove City Medical Center spoke to the importance of the fellowship and the far reaching benefits to patients of the hospital:
"This is such an exciting opportunity for us here at Grove City Medical Center. It is wonderful to be given the time, talent and resources to dedicate to such an important safety initiative as patient identification. While this may not sound like a major issue to many people, it is extremely critical that we have very precise processes in place to ensure we are providing the correct medication/procedure to the correct patient. The idea of taking lessons from industry and working them into our health care processes is long overdue. I am confident this project will result in more efficient and effective work processes within Grove City Medical Center."