Indian Nursing Council signs MOU with US Varsity for Nurse Practitioner Critical Care program

Houston: A top-ranked college for nursing programme in Texas has signed a MoU with an Indian institution, aimed at developing opportunities for nursing education in India through academic and leadership exchange.

The University of Houston College of Nursing and the Indian Nursing Council, a national regulatory body for nurses and nurse education in India, last week signed a memorandum of understanding.

Kathryn Tart, professor and founding dean of the college, together with Associate Professor Shainy Varghese, participated in a two-day conference with the Indian Nursing Council this summer.

Fifty nursing programmes from around India were in attendance, selected to create the Nurse Practitioner Critical Care program (NPCC). The selection process was based on recommendations from the Indian Nursing Council and a willingness from the nursing programs themselves to participate.

The Nurse Practitioner Critical Care programmes in India will support hospitals to increase the number of higher educated nurses trained to care for critically ill patients. The nurse practitioners will work closely with physicians to provide treatment and care for patients in intensive care units.

"India has begun the process for advanced practice nursing care and has many obstacles to overcome, not least of which is the current salary of nurses, and what those salaries would look like with Nurse Practitioner or Doctorate of Nursing Practice degrees," Tart said.

Of those programmes participating in the conference, four expressed interest in creating a Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) programme.

Graduates of the Nurse Practitioner Critical Care programme will be eligible to pursue the doctoral programme. The DNP is a professional graduate degree which focuses on the clinical aspects of a disease process and uses evidence-based practice to improve patient outcomes.

Nurses in India with a DNP will have completed the highest level of training in nursing practice.

Conference attendees learned about programmes at the college and about nursing leadership, advocacy and philanthropy in a presentation by Tart on "Nurses at the Table."

Varghese gave a presentation on "Nurse Practitioner and Doctorate of Nursing Practice Programs in the USA."

The college officials met with nursing leadership from two New Delhi hospitals, Apollo and AIMS, and toured both facilities.

"The hospital tours and meetings with nursing leadership helped us to understand the Indian aspects of patient care and how the NPCC nurses could be utilized in the intensive care units of the hospitals," Varghese said.