Filipino nurses can now hone their global competitive edge through the HCT Academy simulation labs (SimLab), which works within the framework of the Joint Commission International (JCI) — the international gold standard for patient care.
This upskilling will help meet the rising domestic and global demand for Filipino healthcare professionals.
As of last year, data from the Department of Health showed the country is in need of 106,000 nursing staff to fill healthcare facilities across the nation.
Meanwhile, an astounding 25,000 Filipino nurses have been deployed abroad in the last three years and still, several countries, including Canada, Austria, Saudi Arabia, and Germany, are specifically looking for Filipino healthcare workers.
BIGGER HCT ACADEMY LAUNCHED. HCT consultant Dr. Rhoda Reyes; Association of Deans of Philippine Colleges of Nursing (ADPCN) Board Member Dr. Tessie Da Jose; Association of Nursing Service Administrators of the Philippines (ANSAP) Board Member Omar Montejo; Philippine Regulatory Board of Nursing chairperson Elsie Tee; HCT Academy President Armand Del Rosario; Philippine Regulatory Board of Nursing Board Member Merle Salvani; and Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) President Melvin Miranda during the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the upgraded HCT Academy with five new SimLabs in Pasig City
Through the HCT Academy, Filipino nurses who want to meet the global standard can now improve their clinical simulation practice without having to leave the country to receive that sought after advanced training.
Formerly known as Healthcare Advantage Institute (HCAI), the HCT Academy is at the forefront of bridging the industry’s major theory-practice gap or the inability to relate the knowledge acquired in academics and research work with real-world medical practice.
The leading causes of this industry-wide problem are the shortage of educators in the nursing field, outdated university simulation laboratories, and limited hands-on experience due to constrained institutional budgets.
The HCT Academy provides nursing students access to high-quality SimLabs that are armed with the latest hospital equipment. Each SimLab is also operated by a monitoring system that creates up-to-date medical scenarios for the students to respond to while working with qualified instructors.
“We want to teach the nurses the international gold standard in patient care as well as the skills in scenario-based SimLab training so that they can be confident in their training and the diagnosis that they give. When they learn and practice in SimLabs, they don’t have to worry about hurting, injuring, or misdiagnosing a patient. They can just practice and practice until they get it,” said HCT Academy President Armand del Rosario.
“Technology gives you all the opportunity, all the accessibility but at the end of the day, this profession, this career, is still heavily guided by human intervention and ethics. We must keep in mind that we have the duty to keep ethics at the center of the practice, as what we’re doing has an impact on society, people, and the environment,” added Dr. Venus Solar, HCT Academy’s Education Director for Non-Clinical and Accreditation.
HCT Academy President Armand Del Rosario (in violet) personally demonstrates the state-of-the art equipment and features of each SimLab that can revolutionize clinical training of Filipino nurses to make them more globally competitive.
The HCT SimLab is set up to provide learners with the necessary skills to improve the delivery of patient care in the healthcare industry.
Some of its facilities include an Operating Room, Delivery Room, Intensive Care Unit, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Wards, and Private Rooms.
HCT Academy’s hands-on approach is performed by qualified instructors who upskill members of the country’s top nursing organizations — the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) and the Association of Nursing Service Administrators of the Philippines, Inc. (ANSAP).
“In crafting our curriculum, we follow the guidelines set by the Technical Committee on Nursing Education which is composed of representatives from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the Association of Deans of Philippine Colleges of Nursing, Inc. (ADPCN), and the PRC,” said HCT Consultant Dr. Rhoda Reyes.
In keeping with the company’s technological pivot, HCT implemented e-learning modules and partnered with SimLab expert Dr. Sharon Decker of Texas Tech University to enhance their curriculum.
The HCT Academy also diversified its laboratories and added the American Heart Association (AHA) lab for Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) to enhance the learners’ emergency cardiovascular care skills.