SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 15

49th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2010

INTRODUCED BY

Dede Feldman

A JOINT MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE PUBLIC EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TO STUDY EXISTING NEW MEXICO PROGRAMS THAT PREPARE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TO BECOME CERTIFIED NURSING ASSISTANTS OR LICENSED PRACTICAL NURSES AND DEVELOP GUIDELINES TO REPLICATE SUCH PROGRAMS STATEWIDE.

     WHEREAS, certified nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses are important members of the health care team in hospitals, nursing facilities, home health agencies and other health care provider settings; and

     WHEREAS, to become a certified nursing assistant, an individual must complete a state-approved training program, which includes a minimum of fifty hours of theory and one hundred hours of supervised clinical training, and must take a certification test; and

     WHEREAS, to become a licensed practical nurse, an individual must graduate from an accredited program that includes both academic and clinical training and experience and take a national examination to become licensed; and

     WHEREAS, both certification as a nursing assistant and licensing as a practical nurse can serve as a gateway to higher levels of education and medical training such as various levels of registered nursing; emergency medical technician training; physical, occupational or speech therapy; medical school; and many other vital careers in the medical field; and

     WHEREAS, for some time, New Mexico has been experiencing shortages in all categories of health care professionals, including nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses; and

     WHEREAS, nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses who receive their training beginning at the high school level are more inclined to seek employment that allows them to remain in their home communities; and

     WHEREAS, certified nurse assistants are needed to provide routine care, often serving as the eyes and ears of the nurse and freeing the nurse to perform other duties; and

     WHEREAS, licensed practical nurses provide a wide range of duties, including giving injections, taking vital signs, dressing wounds and administering medications; and

     WHEREAS, currently, most training for nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses takes place in community colleges; and

     WHEREAS, a small but growing number of high schools are offering innovative programs that allow qualified and interested students to accomplish all the necessary training to become certified nursing assistants while still in high school and thereby graduate from high school with the necessary qualifications to take the certification test and become employed; and

     WHEREAS, the career enrichment center of the Albuquerque public schools has a program that allows qualified and interested students to accomplish all the coursework and clinical experience to become licensed practical nurses while still in high school and thereby graduate from high school fully prepared to take the national licensing examination and become employed as licensed practical nurses; and

     WHEREAS, according to the career enrichment center, in the previous school year, the program to train licensed practical nurses attracted two hundred fifty applicants, only fifty of whom could be accepted into the program; and

     WHEREAS, as reported in the Albuquerque Journal, one hundred percent of the graduates of the career enrichment center's practical nursing program passed their national examinations on the first try; and

     WHEREAS, the career enrichment center's practical nursing program is the only one like it in the nation, serving as a model worthy of replication in other high schools; and

     WHEREAS, programs such as the one at the career enrichment center not only benefit high school students by preparing them for significant employment opportunities upon graduation, but also help to promote career development in the medical profession and address health care professional work force shortages in the state;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the public education department be requested to study existing New Mexico programs that prepare high school students to become certified nursing assistants or licensed practical nurses and develop guidelines to replicate such programs statewide; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the public education department cooperate with the division of health improvement of the department of health in the development of the guidelines to ensure alignment with federal and state requirements for training, certification and licensing of nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the public education department report to the interim legislative health and human services committee on progress toward development of guidelines and efforts to encourage implementation of similar programs in New Mexico high schools by November 2010; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the secretary of public education, the secretary of health and the principal of the career enrichment center in the Albuquerque public schools.

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