The degree program is meant to help cope with the expected vacancies in the public health sector: from frontline workers in labs testing for diseases such as H1N1 to public health policymakers to food inspectors. Next year it wants to begin enrollment for master’s and doctoral programs in the same field, school officials said.

The National Institutes of Health has released $1,156,739 of economic stimulus money for medical research and education to seven institutions and hospitals in Ohio.

The program, designed to take into account what athletic trainers already know, requires the students to be on campus just six times. They will graduate with associate degrees in 14 months, while students enrolled in the traditional program commit to two years.

Lorain County Community College and four campuses of Kent State University will soon begin paramedic-to-RN programs, which are thought to be the first in Greater Cleveland. The Kent State program will start with a transition course this summer, and a similar course at Lorain County Community College will begin this fall.

If all goes well, the two schools could offer a Doctor of Nursing Practice by 2010. Eighty schools already offer the DNP, which the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Members of the association decided that, by 2015, the DNP will be required for all advanced practice nurses.

Technology transfer — moving research out of institutions and into companies that can develop and market products with it — was a healthy enterprise nationwide in fiscal 2007. Northeast Ohio institutions were more successful than those elsewhere in the state at leveraging research spending with licensing revenues.

Nursing schools are expanding accelerated programs, thanks to new financial aid and the belief that older students may just make better nurses.