Sonia Fajardo, a 2009 nursing graduate from Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Medical Center Campus, has another reason to celebrate her scholarly accomplishments. From an outstanding pool of statewide nominees, she was recently named a recipient of the Florida Campus Compact’s Excellence in Service Award for the community/state college sector.

A highly competitive process, Florida Campus Compact evaluates the academic and community/public service efforts of college students throughout the state of Florida. To meet an academic requirement of 23 service-learning hours, Fajardo used an idea to help needy residents near the neighborhood coffee shop she visited regularly, and a chance conversation with a friendly customer to begin planning and organizing a health fair.

Community service is a required component of all of the college’s degree programs. Students must complete a minimum of 23 hours before graduation.

Fajardo said targeting the working class neighborhoods within North Beach where the health fair was held last November had more to do with the heart and wasn’t a random opportunity to score community service points.

“North Beach residents consist mainly of Hispanic children and families of low economic status, who do not have insurance and are limited in their resources and access to affordable health care,” said Fajardo. “I felt like it was my duty to help in some way because that’s what I’d been trained to do.”

The nursing graduate believed it was not only her responsibility to fulfill the requirements for her degree but to also help individuals gain the knowledge, motivation and resources needed to make informed decisions about their own health care.



The College of Business Administration at Florida International University (FIU) has developed an ambitious agenda to provide healthcare management programs that meet the needs of students and healthcare executives interested in a broad spectrum of managerial expertise. From general management and leadership to information and management systems, to healthcare compliance, to risk management…the College will provide a variety of educational and professional programs for students and managers to enhance skills and competencies required for career advancement in the field.

Dr. Joyce J. Elam, Executive Dean, comments “FIU has developed a strong health focus that includes the College of Medicine, the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, plans for an ambulatory care center and partnerships with both the Florida Department of Health and the Miami-Dade Public Health Department. The College of Business is excited to join this effort and become a center of excellence in providing healthcare management programs.”

The College will begin offering a MBA in Healthcare Management in the Fall. This degree provides new focus and increased business expertise while building on the long history of graduate education in health services administration. Dr. Nancy Borkowski, Director of Healthcare Management Programs for the College, relates that the MBA in Healthcare Management was designed to “create an academic environment that focuses on the development of professionally prepared, ethical leaders with the skills and knowledge necessary to manage our dynamic healthcare industry. The program emphasizes the practical applications of the concepts and theories of management and business within healthcare settings. In addition, we place particular emphasis on critical thinking, self-development, communication and teambuilding skills, problem-solving competence, and ethical leadership.”

Dr. Borkowski says the degree will be offered on weekends and in the community for the convenience of working students. She has already received numerous inquiries and “anticipates a talented and energetic cohort of students.” Fall 2010 will also unveil a Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Management and a Certificate in Healthcare Compliance. A Risk Management Pre-licensing Healthcare Certificate Program will start in Spring. Dr. Borkowski is working with the College’s Executive and Professional Education division to offer a Physician Leadership Certificate, Business Skills for Public Health Managers and a Certificate in Meaningful Use of Healthcare Technology. An initial foray into global healthcare includes both research and an educational certificate in Healthcare Management with the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) in the Dominican Republic.

Health care IT continues to command attention in the national debate on health care reform as legislators evaluate how its broader use can curb costs and reduce errors. Job opportunities in healthcare IT are estimated to increase by more than 200,000 over the next few years. To take advantage of these opportunities, individuals will need to be well versed in both information systems and the healthcare industry. The Department of Decision Sciences and Information Systems within the College, chaired by Dr. Christos Koulamas, is developing programs to meet these workforce needs. The Department plans a Master’s degree in Health Information and Management Systems as well as a Graduate Certificate. FIU will be the only university in the South Florida region to focus on healthcare information systems in both educational programs and research. Many department faculty are already conducting research in the field. In January, three students (two from Decision Sciences and one from Healthcare Management) received a grant from the Central and North Florida Health Information and Management Systems Society for a research project on Stakeholder Distrust as a Barrier to HIE Participation. The students will conduct this research under the supervision of Drs. Gloria Deckard and Monica Chiarini-Tremblay from the Department, and Dr. Borkowski. Duane Steward, CNFHIMSS HIE Co-Chair, stated that “With this grant, we are confident that the students at FIU, through investigative research and analysis, will be able to identify feasible strategies that can be implemented to help engage health care providers. The ultimate goal is to breakdown the barriers that exist relative to the adoption and participation of HIE, and instead start building a platform of trust in the use of electronic medical record data.” Last Fall, the Master of Science in Management Information Systems (MSMIS) program hosted a “Distinguished CIO Lunch and Learn, titled “Health Care Information Systems: Challenges and Cures,” which provided multiple perspectives on this and other pressing health information issues.

Poised to excel in healthcare management education and research, the College is developing a fast growing presence in the local healthcare community. Commitment to community partnerships is a core value of FIU’s healthcare initiatives. The College intends to broaden this commitment through engagement of both faculty and students.



Nearly 100 physicians participated in a unique university/hospital collaboration between BU’s Office of Continuing Medical Education and North Shore Medical Center’s Continuing Medical Education program at BU’s main campus in Miami Shores recently. “The Continuing Medical Education Licensure Requirements for Florida Physician Seminar covered all the bases, including HIV/AIDS, end of life care management, and prevention of medical errors,” said Julie Dotson, director of CME for BU’s School of Graduate Medical Sciences. “We are pleased to be working together with North Shore Medical Center to advance the knowledge and skills of local medical practitioners to improve the lives of residents living in northern Miami-Dade County.


(l to r) Charles M. Culver, M.D., Barry University Physician Assistant Program; Jorge L. Perez, M.D., chair for North Shore Medical Center Continuing Medical Education Committee; and Keith Moore, PA-C, Barry University PA Program.

The collaboration will provide weekly in-house seminars for medical education credits for physicians at North Shore Medical Center, as well as regular CME events on the Barry University campus. The second program offered in the Jesse G. Keshin Continuing Medical Education Lecture Series was on podiatric surgery, presented by Dr. Thomas Merrill, professor of podiatric surgery for BU’s SGMS and North Shore Medical Center staff member.



Education is critical in the healthcare industry. As healthcare professionals, we constantly assimilate a tremendous amount of new technology and new ways of delivering health care. The patients we care for are increasingly diverse, while the policies that regulate our jobs are always changing. The current economic climate produced by managed care and cuts in federal healthcare funding makes the task even more challenging. From the smallest private practice to the largest healthcare system, healthcare professionals face ever tightening economic constraints. Each year, we try to deliver the best care we can with fewer resources.

Yet it is often difficult for established professionals to take time out from their daily responsibilities to learn about the best practices for meeting the industry’s always evolving challenges. Many institutions urge administrators to pursue further education, some even require and pay for it. Yet schedules are so overloaded that healthcare professionals rarely can afford to leave the hospital or clinic and come to a college campus. That’s why Barry University decided to bring its master’s program in health services administration to them.

Established in 1994, the program on campus has always been friendly to working professionals, with classes scheduled on evenings and Saturdays. But in 2002, Barry took that convenience further when it began to offer the program at locations throughout the Baptist Hospital System in Miami. Barry currently offers its degree program at six healthcare institutions across South Florida including the Miami Children’s Hospital, Mercy Hospital, Mt. Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach, the Tenet South Florida Healthcare System, and the Memorial Healthcare System in Hollywood.

The value of on-site training for clinical practice is undisputed. At Barry’s School of Natural and Health Sciences, there is a long history of partnering with healthcare facilities in order to provide students with clinical skills. Those partnerships have met with great success. Over the past 20 years, approximately 76 percent of graduates in Barry’s master’s program in biomedical sciences have gained admission to allopathic, osteopathic, dental, or podiatric schools throughout the United States. The bachelor’s program in cardiovascular perfusion, which requires two semesters of classroom and laboratory instruction followed by a full year of clinical experience, prepares students for lucrative careers in this critical surgical specialty. Barry’s master’s in anesthesiology prepares registered nurses to serve as nurse anesthetists with 760 hours of classroom instruction and 3,500 hours of clinical instruction. Graduates had a 100 percent first-time passing rate on the National Certification Examination in 2003 and 100 percent employment as Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNA) throughout the United States.

Barry also has a long history of accommodating working students. Barry University is one of only 15 institutions in the United States that offers a weekend program in occupational therapy, so working adults can prepare for careers. It also offers evening programs that lead to bachelor’s degrees in biology with specializations in either histotechnology or as a medical laboratory technician. In addition, allied health professional undergraduate degree programs are offered in medical technology and nuclear medicine technology. But if the benefits of flexible, on-site training for clinical practice are well-established, the need to be on location to train health service administrators and other industry leaders might seem less obvious, at least at first glance. Once Barry began to offer the health services administration program on-site, however, the benefits surpassed our expectations. More than simple convenience, the on-site program provides students with an entirely new perspective on the health care industry.

The first course offered at Baptist facilities attracted students from the ranks of senior management, including the vice president of a hospital in the Keys. But the program also attracted other students, from people with little experience who had been recently employed in the Baptist system to established social workers, nurses, therapists, and physicians. Ranging in age from their early twenties to their sixties, the students formed a cohort and completed their course work together. Students from several different hospitals had the opportunity to really get to know each other.

By meeting and working with people from other facilities, the students learn more than what is in the course syllabus. In the academic setting, administrators have a rare opportunity to hear how physicians and other clinical care providers think as they treat patients and clinicians learn what considerations business people must take into account when running a hospital. As they come to appreciate each other’s methods for solving problems, they develop a more cohesive approach to caring for patients.

When education for health service administrators goes off campus and sets up on location, the students do more than develop their individual leadership skills. Together they build a network that connects healthcare professionals across South Florida and inspires solutions for some of the industry’s most intractable problems.



Barry University BSN Program Exposes RNs to Community Health Concerns

Used to be, when Mary Massieu noticed that a patient’s problems went beyond strictly health concerns, she would think to herself: Turn it over to the social worker. As a registered nurse on the telemetry floor of South Miami Hospital, she had enough to do keeping track of her patients’ vital signs without worrying about social issues, too. “But I can’t say that anymore,” says Massieu, who earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing at Barry University in May. “I’ve got to really look at my patients and see what they’re going home to.”

Massieu’s attitude changed while taking a course in community health nursing at Barry. Forty percent of Barry nursing students’ clinical experiences are in community settings in South Florida, where they provide primary healthcare services such as screenings, education, and advocacy for change. Students in the community health nursing course dedicate every Friday for ten to fifteen weeks to a daycare center, adult care center, church, or social service agency. Massieu and a classmate were assigned to a daycare center in Homestead run by the Redlands Christian Migrant Association. One of six RCMA centers in southwest Miami-Dade, the center serves the children of Mexican migrant workers and is staffed entirely by members of the local migrant community. “The center was spotless and all the kids seemed really happy,” Massieu observes. “But the children had chronic runny noses – green runny noses.”

Encouraged by the community health course to take environmental factors into account, Massieu attributes the chronic infections to the living conditions of extreme poverty. Exhaustion from long hours in the field makes it difficult for families to clean house, especially when there may not be running water or money to buy cleaning supplies. The BSN students worked with the children’s caretakers to promote hand washing at the facility as well as having the children drink more fluids.



Community nursing allows students to see how patients live outside the hospital

“It really opened my eyes,” Massieu says of the experience. “There’s more to treating our patients than what happens in the hospital.”

Helping nurses make that connection is the key to community health. “A community-based curriculum allows students to assess individuals and families in their own communities, where they see the cultural and environmental influences on health and the barriers to healthcare services,” says Dr. Pegge Bell, dean of the Barry University School of Nursing. In the RN to BSN program, acute care nurses are exposed to the conditions their patients face outside the hospital. “The students don’t realize how people live,” says Gene Majka, an instructor at Barry who teaches the community health nursing class to RNs earning their BSN degrees through the Baptist Scholars program for nurses in the Baptist Health System. “I always get feedback saying now I treat my students differently.”

Yessenia Salgado, a registered nurse at Baptist, cared for the elderly when she worked in a pulmonary step down unit at the hospital. But before her Friday visits to the Seymour Gelber Adult Daycare Center in Kendall she says, “I never saw them actively out in society.” Salgado was impressed to see the population singing, dancing, and engaged in arts and crafts. Although the elders received impeccable care, she and a classmate noticed that many had the fragile skin typical of aging. At the end of the term, the students gave the seniors a presentation on the importance of protecting the skin to avoid infection.

Hernando Mispireta was well aware that not all seniors receive such exemplary care; he found his vocation as a nurse after bringing his father – who suffered from Alzheimer’s – to Miami from his native Peru where, he says, “my father was basically abandoned.” Earning his BSN at Barry while working in neo-natal intensive care at South Miami Hospital, Mispireta completed his community nursing at an RCMA daycare center in Florida City. He recorded a high incidence of skin rashes among the children, likely from exposure to the pesticides on their parents’ clothes. “We had to let the parents know to take a shower and change clothes before touching the children,” he says. With his classmate, Mispireta kept data on the children’s health in a spread sheet to identify patterns and arranged a mini-health fair for the families and staff.

“The experience enlightens you as to the lack of health care available to people living in this country,” Mispireta observes. Inspired, he joined a citizens’ working group to make recommendations to the U.S. Congress on health care, became active in the Florida Nursing Association, and is part of the electoral college, hoping to help elect officials who will effect change. “One door leads to another,” he says. “This work in the community not only opened my experience as a nurse, but inspired me to act on larger issues as well.”