Nurse school here gets US quality nod

The Straits Times, March 31, 2007


A TRAINING centre for nurses here has received a stamp of approval from a prestigious American agency.

The SingHealth Alice Lee Institute for Advanced Nursing has been accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Centre (ANCC), the largest such agency in the world.

The institute is the first in Asia and only the third outside the United States to get ANCC accreditation.

The other two are in Lebanon and Scotland. More than 275 educational organisations have been certified by the centre.

Dr Mary Koithan, who chairs the commission on ANCC accreditation, said: 'This demonstrates its commitment to providing quality programmes that address the professional training needs of nurses today.'

The 10-year-old institute offers advanced nursing courses in specialised areas such as pain management and operating theatre care.

Last year, it trained 7,119 nurses, including 600 from countries as far away as Mexico, Mongolia and Yemen.

SingHealth's chief executive officer, Professor Tan Ser Kiat, said: 'This accreditation is a great encouragement to us...It brings the institute closer to its goal of becoming the region's leading centre in advanced, practice-based nursing education.'