Medical English Enhancement Training for Foreign-Born RNs

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This competitive revision will build upon our parent award, 2R44MD002709-02, entitled Medical English Enhancement Training for Foreign-Born RNs , to develop a companion software application for mobile devices that accompanies and augments the parent course in teaching medical English and communicative competency to foreign-born nurses. As foreign-trained nurses become an increasingly integral component of our nation's healthcare system, it is important that efforts be undertaken to help them attain and maintain adequate proficiency in the English language. To date, there has been a near-total absence of language-learning resources devoted to English instruction for foreign-born medical professionals. In addition, nurses frequently lack the time to pursue professional development; any educational product targeting this population should be available anytime, anywhere to maximize efficacy and adoptability. The proposed mobile application will contain a comprehensive set of interactive, dynamic learning activities featuring nursing-specific vocabulary words, phrases, and grammatical concepts all accessible on the users' smartphones, thus providing a valuable resource to cement one of the cornerstones in Secondary Language Acquisition. This proposed revision, aimed at increasing users' mastery of English vocabulary and thereby their effectiveness as responsive healthcare providers, would further a number of objectives recognized in NOT- OD-10-034: NIH Announces the Availability of Recovery Act Funds for Competitive Revision Applications for Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Transfer Technology Research Grants (R43/R44 and R41/R42) through the NIH Basic Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network (OppNet). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: In light of the significant nursing shortage in America, healthcare institutions are increasingly relying on a supply of foreign-trained personnel to provide adequate nursing care to their patients. Currently, there is a lack of medically-focused ESL resources available for foreign-born healthcare professionals, in spite of their overwhelming interest to improve their chances for success on licensing examinations and better serve their patients. Using an easily accessible mobile software application to increase the communicative competence of nurses with limited English proficiency will translate into a plethora of benefits, including: improved professional development of foreign-trained staff, greater quality of care for the patients they serve, and overall improved functioning of the healthcare delivery system.