Nurselearn is a nurse-owned company that grew out of the experience of a seasoned staff development nurse who spent several years working in small hospitals, large tertiary care teaching hospitals and county and State healthcare facilities.  Many of these institutions, especially small and rural agencies, struggle to provide a wide variety of educational experiences and expert nursing consultation due to budget issues.

Our goal is to assist the busy staff development nurse with reasonably priced education tools to supplement in-house teaching efforts.  All educational tools are designed to help reduce class preparation time, offer creative teaching alternatives and move lessons out of the classroom and into the care area.

We also strive to provide learning opportunities for the nurse-educator, especially those new to the role, when in-house support to prepare for the teaching role is not readily available.  Self-study CD's available for "Making Learning Fun" and "Needs Assessments", and our "Nursing Word Games" CD and free online training "Adding Pizzazz To Your Classroom Presentation" are all designed with the new educator in mind.

 

 

Sharon Lafferty, MAT, RN.,C

Sharon began her career as a diploma nurse working in a busy obstetrical department in a metropolitan hospital before moving into ambulatory healthcare and later community health nursing.  While working in community health she became an OB-GYN Family Planning Nurse Practitioner and completed a Baccalaureate Degree in Education.

After becoming the director of a nursing staff development department in a large tertiary teaching facility she completed a Master's Degree in Education.  Specializing in developing self-study materials Sharon has developed numerous educational modules and encouraged many others to foster the teaching-learning process through creative techniques and independent self-study modalities.  She has also conducted dozens of workshops, planned numerous continuing education offerings, served as adjunct faculty for various schools of nursing in the area and is certified in Nursing Professional Development by ANCC.

A move from the teaching facility to a community hospital as Assistant Director of Nursing opened the doors to learning about the bigger picture in hospital and healthcare management.  Sharon not only functioned as the Assistant DON and Staff Educator but also completed a training program at the CDC to take on the role of Infection Control Nurse.  She also worked as a Home Health Administrator and later became involved in quality management and performance improvement while assisting the facility to meet JCAHO accreditation requirements.  She also has several years experience in supervising case management in both acute and behavioral health care settings.

As an independent health care consultant Sharon has worked with many types of health care agencies seeking accreditation by JCAHO, NCQA, CARF and AAAHC.  She has also conducted studies on the quality of health care for two large Tribal agencies in Oklahoma over a 5-year period.  She also taught a quality management certification program for Learning Tree University for two years.

A recipient of the 1997 "Distinguished Achievement In Lifelong Learning" from NNSDO Sharon, through independent study, has also learned to develop and incorporate computer technology into the enhancement of teaching and self-study modalities.  She remains the principle technology developer for NurseLearn though content experts from other fields contribute to specialty topics.