Nurse blogs have been popular among student nurses, employed nurses, nurse practitioners and even the general public over the years, as the knowledge and humor imparted in blogs such as Nurse Ratched’s Place (since 2006) and Not Nurse Ratched (since 2007) are contagious. New nurse blogs come on board every year, and 2007 and 2008 were good years, but not as populated as 2009. This past year showed a drop in new nurse blogs, especially compared with the previous year. Read More..

Nurse Practitioners are becoming more and more sought after. These are nurses who have had extra training (typically a master’s in nursing) along with additional clinical experience. Once certified as a nurse practitioner, you can order tests and write prescriptions, acting as more of a healthcare provider on your own. If you’re interested in becoming a nurse practitioner, you might want to get a head start on that master’s program by using these 16 open courseware classes to brush up on your skills. Though you won’t get any credit, the courses are free and can help prepare you for grad school.

Course from MIT

1. Introduction to Biology: This course from MIT is basic biology.

Courses from Johns Hopkins

2. Introduction to Health Policy: This course from Johns Hopkins explores the basic issues in health policy and management.
3. Adolescent Health and Development: Another course from Johns Hopkins, this course covers the development of the adolescent body.
4. Epidemiology of Infectious Disease: This course from Johns Hopkins explores infectious disease epidemiology.
5. Health Issues for Aging Populations: This course from Johns Hopkins explores aging and health policy related to treating older persons.
6. Ethical Issues in Public Health: This course from Johns Hopkins explores ethics in healthcare.
7. Impact of Pandemic Influenza on Public Health: This course from Johns Hopkins explores the public impact of an influenza pandemic.
8. Environmental Health: This course from Johns Hopkins explores environmental concerns and the health problems associated with them.

Courses from Tufts

9. Human Growth and Development: Tufts University offers this course on how humans develop and grow.
10. Cardiovascular Pathophysiology: This course from Tufts offers an in depth look at the cardiovascular system.
11. Musculoskeletal Pathophysiology: This course from Tufts offers an in depth look at the human musculoskeletal system.
12. Renal Pathophysiology: Learn how the kidneys function and adapt to disease in this course from Tufts University.
13. Genetics: This course from Tufts covers basic human genetics, including how they contribute to disease.
14. Diabetes Mellitis: Diagnosis and Pathophysiology: This course from Tufts University explores diagnosing and treating diabetes, one of America’s most prevalent chronic diseases.

Course from Columbia University

15. America’s Battle for the Cure: The Culture and Politics of Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment: This course from Columbia University explores the politics and culture that surround breast cancer in the United States.

Course from Connexions

16. Images of Memorable Cases: 50 Years at the Bedside: This course from Connexions is a study in the art and science of medical diagnosis.

As baby boomers age, and the US rolls out universal healthcare, the demand for healthcare is growing, just as there is a shortage of healthcare professionals to provide that care.

The nurse practitioner is the perfect option to help bridge the gap. With their additional training and clinical experience, they can provide many of the services of doctors and become a family’s primary healthcare professional.

Nurse practitioners have great job opportunities ahead of them, particularly as more and more states allow them to go into private practice and become healthcare providers. Today, 28 states allow nurse practitioners to act as healthcare providers, and more states are on the way in order to ease their healthcare burdens.

However, there is currently a shortage of nurse practitioners, just as there is a shortage of other nursing professionals. If you’re already an RN, and have interest in becoming a nurse practitioner, there are many schools you can choose from and you’re almost certain to have a job waiting for you once your education and clinical experience is through. Choosing a career as a nurse practitioner can offer you a better salary, plenty of job satisfaction and plenty of job security.

The online degrees refers to college degrees that a student receives either by use of an Internet-connected computer, instead of attending college in a traditional campus setting. Improvements in technology and the increasing use of the Internet worldwide have led to development of online colleges that provides associates, bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees.

1. College Scholarships.com: This website is developed with objective to help  out the college bound, graduate school bound and career bound students to all ages to get information about a wide variety of subjects for students help like financial aid,  free college  free college scholarship and financial aid searches, online degrees and online college programs.
2. Just Colleges: The objective of this website is to help a student to in his quest for   college that suits him/her best. Just college helps a student in his that objective as it is an interactive guide for individuals aspiring for higher education. It improves the way and manner by which a university recruits and enrolls students. It provides list of around 5,000 College Universities around the world to students. It provides in-depth profiles of hundred of colleges.
3. The Degree Experts: It is a unique platform that offers reliable and updated information on convenient and flexible form of education.   It works as link between some popular universities and some interested students by providing them with detailed information on the courses and degree programs as provided in area of the distance and online education. It also provides range of online programs including Bachelor’s, Master’s, Diploma and Doctorate courses as provided by the some top inline universities.
4. Degree Finders: This website that was founded in 1996 catering to the needs of distance education.   It is very helpful on important issues like locating and evaluating education institutions providing distance learning programs, accreditation of institutions.  It also keeps a stern view and eye over various fallacies existing with ‘diploma mills’ that risks distance learner over a longer period of time.
5. Top Education Guide: This website specializes in marketing handling and recruitment lead generation solutions for colleges, universities and career schools. Its services include Internet marketing and search marketing as to reach the America’s leading candidates looking for educational and professional growth.
6. Online Degree Advantage: The sole mission of online degree advantage is to help and assist and aspiring career professionals and career oriented students to find out the right education and experience   that let you achieve their career aspirations while maintaining the current career and personal lives.  It helps all, the career professional, aspiring students and working adults who need a higher education or degree that will work around their busy schedules to get an appropriate online degree.
7. OnlineDegreePrograms:  This is the website that fulfills and helps a student to achieve their higher education goals by providing them the list of best online schools with the best online programs. Having programs from the entertainment to communication to going with online business. The website accomplishes education need for all including full time employees, single parents, and working parents and all for online education programs. With the help of this website you can be one of those thousand people who are earning their associate, bachelor and master’s degree online in every industry from business to criminal justice.

As it is natural for people to consider information about their health of higher priority and especially when their issue is involved of their data protection and privacy of their medical records then they hardly compromise with any situation and that remain their highest priority. They all look for the strongest protection to their data under law of the state.  Therefore there are certain facts about the medical record privacy that are very necessary for every person to know and learn about:

1. The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulate a uniform set of standard for medical record privacy in the United States.  The HIPAA was started and regulated in United States in 2003. It applies only to the records kept and maintained by health care providers, health planners and the health clearinghouses. However, despite this much of protection a great deal of data remains covered and protected outside health care facilities and the files of health planner and most of the time is beyond the reach of HIPAA.
2. As far as sharing of medical records is concerned it is maintained and kept by a large number of people and organizations. First of the agencies that keep health a record is insurance companies that needs record before making or issues a policy or making a payment under an existing policy. Next agency to keep medical records is government agencies that require medical records for verifying claims of medicare, medical, social security disability and workers compensation. The Medical Information Bureau (MIB) is the next with its central database of medical information shared by insurance companies. There are about 15 million Americans and Canadians are on file in the MIB’s computers. IntelliScript and MedPoint are databases that report prescription drug purchase histories to insurance companies. Like the MIB reports, IntelliScript and MedPoint reports are used primarily when consumers are seeking private health, life or disability insurance. Employers do also for medical records of their employees though it is covered under provisions of HIPAA. And lastly your medical information to an extent is kept by medical information as to be passes on to the direct marketers.
3. Apart from HIPAA, in order to limit access of others to your medical records the provisions are as you can discuss your confidentiality concerns with your doctors. You can ask your health care provider to take care when photocopying portions of your medical records for others. Sometimes more than the necessary medical records get copied that are even more necessary than the insurance company and other health care provider.
4. Other than HIPAA, nearly half of the state laws let patients or their representatives to access medical records. Laws let health care facilities to charge a “reasonable” fee for copying records. In case you are getting treatment at a  federal medical facility, you have all the rights to get your data under the federal Privacy Act of 1974 (5 USC sec. 552a)
5. The 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandated the development of federal regulations to be adopted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The regulations were confirmed by the Secretary of DHHS in April 2001, and were effective April 14, 2003.

It is important to note that there are different categories of accredited nursing programs, and these are offered in relation to the specific area of study of each nurse. For instance, there are some accredited adult nurse practitioners, and these are the type of nurses whop will be trained on how to deal with adult health, and as such they will posses knowledge on how to specifically deal with health issues which affect adults. It is important to note this form of nursing programs allow the nurse to specialize in a specific form of nursing.

As for the family nurse practitioner, all that will be required will be to, either decide whether you want to complete the whole course at a go or you could as well choose to be a part time student. This type of program will be offering knowledge to those nurses who will be handling the health matters of the whole family. This program will equip this nurse with the necessary skills required to ensure that the health of both adults and children in a family is taken care of. This can as well be taken as a full time course as well but it may also be undertaken as a part time course.

As for the maternal nurse program, the nurse will be equipped with skills on how to go about handling matters that are related to maternal health, and this goes a little deeper into explaining how the new born is supposed to be taken care of health wise as well. Considering that this is a sensitive area of health, most of the nurses here will also be given some training on how to handle expectant women as well. Note that there are also some accreditation points that have to be awarded once a nurse has completed this program and that they also get high as the program becomes more complex.

For instance the accreditation points for a family nurse practitioner program is placed at forty six points, and this is due to the complexity of the program itself. All the above practitioner programs can, as mentioned earlier, be undertaken either through the usual complete full time enrollment or you could as well choose to take them online. There is usually no big difference, as when it comes to practicals you will be required to report to the nearest medical facility around you, where you will be required to carry out the exercise.

Most of these programs will as well lead to other diverse disciplines related to the nursing profession, and these will include advanced qualifications such as master’s degrees or even PhDs. But it is advisable that you first shop around for a reputable institution, as well as the one which will be friendly to your pocket.