Kent, Lorain Community College to start paramedic-to-RN programs

Nursing programs at Lorain County Community College and four campuses of Kent State University will soon welcome their inaugural classes of students who already know how to insert IV lines and assess patients, often under difficult circumstances.

That’s because the students are paramedics who want to become registered nurses. In a new paramedic-to-RN program, they will end up with associate degrees in nursing and will be eligible to take the licensing exam to become registered nurses.

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.

“We had had several requests over the years from different agencies that employ paramedics in their ERs, and the paramedics had voiced a desire also to complete their education for the RN licensure,” said Karen Joris, coordinator of the program at Lorain County Community College.

Kent State coordinators sent a needs-assessment survey to 287 paramedics in Northeast Ohio before launching the program on the Ashtabula, East Liverpool and Tuscarawas campuses, as well as the Twinsburg Center of the Geauga campus, said Carol Drennan, senior program director for nursing and allied health at Kent State Ashtabula. The 39 responses all included positive feedback about such a program, Drennan said.

The Lorain County Community College and Kent State efforts appear to be the first of their kind in Greater Cleveland. Lisa Anderson, vice president of member services for the Center for Health Affairs and spokesperson for the Northeast Ohio Nursing Initiative (NEONI), said she knows of no others in the region.

Anderson said NEONI started thinking about paramedic-to-RN programs in 2005. She said the idea of providing paramedics with a “bridge” to becoming RNs — and giving them credit for previous work — was one answer to the question of how to increase the number of individuals going into nursing.

“I think we may see some more interest in the area,” Anderson said.

Paramedics might want to become RNs for better pay or career development. Paramedics in Ohio average about $27,000 a year, while the state’s registered nurses average $57,000 annually, according to employment projects data (pdf) from the Department of Job and Family Services.

There’s a great need for RNs in the state, but paramedics are also in demand. There will be a 22.6 percent change in employment opportunities for RNs from 2006 to 2016, according to the state. There will be a 13.5 percent change for paramedics and emergency medical technicians.

Anderson said that even if a huge demand for paramedic-to-RN programs arises, a lack of faculty — identified in a 2004 NEONI report — would keep programs from growing quickly.

Joris said the Lorain County Community College program benefits from its partnership with the Cleveland Clinic health system, which will provide clinical faculty, as well as clinical sites and lab space.

St. Joseph Health Center in Warren will host the clinical component of Kent State’s program this summer. The school also has contracts with various sites throughout Northeast Ohio, which will allow students to complete other clinical rotations as close to home as possible, Drennan said.

Flexibility is an important aspect of both programs, since they want to accommodate students who will most likely work as they study. Lecture content will be available online, and the Lorain County Community College program will offer two-hour sessions throughout the day when students are required to be in the laboratory. That way, paramedics can fit in lab time around their shifts, Joris said.

Lorain County Community College hopes to admit into its first class 24 students who have worked as paramedics for at least two years, Joris said. Drennan said the Kent State campuses will have a combined eight or nine students to start.

They must be certified paramedics, but there is no requirement in terms of years of experience.

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user EMS_EMT]