Rainy River Community College nursing program students are seeing a change in their curriculum this fall.

“We’re excited about these changes,” said RRCC interim provost Ken Simberg. “We think it’s going to serve our students and area employers very well.”

Several changes in the program are a result of new accreditation standards that all nursing programs in Minnesota are facing.

The driving force is a transition in the source of accreditation — the board that previously provided accreditation, the Minnesota Board of Nursing, will turn the responsibilities over to the National League of Nursing by 2016.

“In order to meet those standards, we have to have changes in place now,” Simberg explained. “We can’t wait until 2016.”

The major content of the classes will stay the same, according to Simberg.

“The new curriculum just lines us up with goals and objectives identified in the new accreditation standards,” he explained.

The new curriculum used at RRCC comes from Itasca Community College. The Itasca and International Falls colleges are able to share programs as they are both part of the Northeast Higher Education District of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.

“We’re really fortunate to have a neighboring college in our (district) with whom we can join forces to meet accreditation standards and still provide a nursing program to students and employers in the International Falls area,” Simberg said.

With the new standards, a new director for the nursing program came on board at RRCC to fulfill the requirement that the director have a masters degree in nursing. Carol Church, director of Practical Nursing Program at Itasca Community College, started this fall as a shared director.

The third change in the program is that leaders implement a quality improvement plan that “really looks at the entire program,” Simberg said. This includes improvements in area such as recruiting efforts, retention, and facilities offered to students.

“It looks at just about everything we do,” he said, adding that the college will document continuous improvement in the whole operation of delivering a nursing program. He added that this is an opportunity to strengthen the program.

“Many employers depend on our graduates,” Simberg said. “We think these changes will position us well into the future to provide workers needed in our health care industry.”