Sanitas Medical Center hosted its first system-wide educational symposium tailored for registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, medical assistants, and others at the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies, September 23. “Excellence in Patient Safety as Part of a Value-Based Model of Care” welcomed over 340 attendees and presenters.
“The nursing team at the Sanitas Medical Centers would like to express their sincere gratitude to Dr. Carmen Presti and Dean Hudson Santos for their outstanding collaboration on this significant project,” said Osnardo “Ozzie” Drago, RN, Sanitas director of nursing, who led the event with Reina Enriquez, RN, BSN, Sanitas safety and quality nurse manager. “For our teams, this marked several firsts, including our inaugural nursing and medical assistant symposium, our first symposium offering continuing education units to our nurses and medical assistants, and the first time we could provide a venue accommodating our teams from Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.”
Originating in Colombia in 1980, Sanitas Medical Center is a multinational health business group that entered the United States market over a decade ago and has medical centers across Florida and Tennessee, according to the company website.
“We were excited to sponsor this important educational initiative presented by Sanitas Medical Center and look forward to growing our clinical partnership while enhancing a mutually beneficial relationship,” said Associate Professor of Clinical Carmen Presti, DNP, ARNP, ACNP-BC, the school’s director of clinical partnerships. “We feel it is important to strengthen the education of bedside clinicians in the community, and Sanitas provides excellent care throughout multiple locations in Florida, making the centers ideal placements for our Family Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner students.”
In addition to helping coordinate the symposium, Dr. Presti presented “Emergency Preparedness: The Role of the Emergency Response Team.” School of Nursing and Health Studies Associate Professor Charles Downs, Ph.D., ACNP-BC, FAAN, presented a session titled “Long COVID Assessment and Management, Clinical Course Expectations.” Other presenters addressed value-based medicine, social determinants of health, previsit planning, population health management, infection prevention, common documentation mistakes, and encouraging reporting without fear.
The daylong event took place in the school’s S.H.A.R.E. Auditorium, and the school provided 6.0 continuing education credits for nurses and certificates of completion for medical assistants that can be put toward their recertifications, noted Presti. “This represents the first [continuing education] collaboration between our organizations, and we are confident it will not be the last,” said Drago. “I extend my sincere thanks to the University of Miami and the School of Nursing and Health Studies."
