Eustis, FL: Lake Technical College and Orlando Health South Lake Hospital are working together to address the critical nursing shortage and support health care education in south Lake County. This April, Lake Technical College will begin offering a full-time practical nursing program on the Orlando Health South Lake campus in Clermont.
The mission of Lake Technical College is to be an integral component of the economic growth and development in our communities by offering a variety of high quality career-education and training opportunities. “Our partnership with Orlando Health South Lake Hospital provides us with a new location and the ability to train more nurses for critical positions in healthcare,” said DeAnna Thomas, Executive Director of Lake Technical College. “Lake Tech has offered a high-performing practical nursing program with great success for over 40 years. This partnership will allow a deeper level of real-world immersion and experiences for students, directly resulting in a more experienced graduate.”
Collaborative partnerships between industry and education provide students with an innovative, hands-on training experience for nursing students to interact directly with hospital staff with a direct path to employment. “Orlando Health South Lake Hospital is pleased to partner with Lake Technical College and other educational programs in our community to better equip students to be highly skilled healthcare professionals,” said Bonnie Onofre, chief nursing officer, Orlando Health South Lake. “We know this type of close, intentional collaboration not only benefits students, but healthcare at large. We’re proud to support the next generation of licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and other healthcare professionals.”
The program begins April 3 and will run full-time, Monday – Thursday from 8:00am – 4:00pm. Program completion takes one year and prepares students for immediate employment in the nursing field. Additionally, students will receive 17 credits toward the Associate of Science degree in Nursing at Lake Sumter State College through the RN bridge program. Lake Tech offers additional healthcare programming such as patient care technician, phlebotomy, pharmacy technician, medical assisting, emergency medical technician, paramedic, and IV therapy. For more information visit www.laketech.org.
Lake Technical College is a public, post-secondary institution that offers high quality training for over 30 career and technical programs, as well as, adult education classes for GED and ESOL. The main campus is located at 2001 Kurt St., Eustis. The Institute of Public Safety is located at 1565 Lane Park Cutoff, Tavares. Visit the website www.laketech.org, or call (352) 589-2250 for more information.
About Orlando Health
Orlando Health, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is a not-for-profit healthcare organization with $8.1 billion of assets under management that serves the southeastern United States.
Founded more than 100 years ago, the healthcare system is recognized around the world for Central Florida’s only pediatric and adult Level I Trauma program as well as the only state-accredited Level II Adult Trauma Center in Pinellas County. It is the home of the nation’s largest neonatal intensive care unit under one roof, the only system in the southeast to offer open fetal surgery to repair the most severe forms of spina bifida, the site of an Olympic athlete training facility and operator of one of the largest and highest performing clinically integrated networks in the region. Orlando Health has pioneered life-changing medical research and its Graduate Medical Education program hosts more than 350 residents and fellows.
The 3,238-bed system includes 23 hospitals and emergency departments – 18 of which are currently operational with five coming soon. The system also includes nine specialty institutes, more than 100 adult and pediatric primary care practices, skilled nursing facilities, an in-patient behavioral health facility under the management of Acadia Healthcare, and more than 60 outpatient facilities that include imaging and laboratory services, wound care centers, home healthcare services in partnership with LHC Group, and urgent care centers in partnership with FastMed Urgent Care. More than 4,000 physicians, representing more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties have privileges across the Orlando Health system, which employs more than 25,000 team members and more than 1,200 physicians.
In FY22, Orlando Health served nearly 142,000 inpatients and 3.9 million outpatients. The healthcare system provided more than $782 million in total value to the communities it serves in the form of charity care, community benefit programs and services, community building activities and more in FY 21, the most recent period for which this information is available. Additional information can be found at http://www.orlandohealth.com, or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @orlandohealth.