Louisiana Administrative Code
Title 28 - EDUCATION
Part LXIX - Bulletin 107-Health Occupations Content Standards Curriculum Framework
Chapter 1 - General
Section LXIX-101 - Introduction

A. Health Occupations Education in Louisiana is composed of subject matter and clinical learning experiences designed to prepare students with competencies required to assist qualified health professionals in providing diagnostic, therapeutic, preventive, and rehabilitative services to patients in health care facilities and in the community. Like many states, Louisiana is facing a shortage of health care professionals, particularly in rural areas. Training nurses, doctors, dentists, and allied health professionals requires students who have an interest in science and technology and who enjoy working with people. Health care offers an array of career opportunities that is continually expanding.

B. The health occupations education programs vary throughout the state, but they can be grouped into the following occupational cluster areas: Allied Health, Dental, Emergency Medical Services, Medical Information Systems, Nursing, and Physician Services. Clinical articulations among educational institutions and health care facilities are integral and critical components of these educational programs. There is an effective integration of didactic and clinical learning which is a result of contract affiliations among the secondary educational institutions and the health care agencies.

C. Both nationwide and statewide, there are regulations that have been established and administered as a means of safeguarding the public against unqualified health care workers. These regulatory procedures include certification, registration, and licensure in certain health occupations. There are several industry-based certifications taught within the secondary education system: nursing assistant, emergency first responder, dental radiology (certification received in dental assistant course), professional provider CPR, and OSHA certification (dental assistant course). These students, who obtain certification upon completion of various health science related courses, are essentially employable upon their meeting the mandated course criteria and skill standards. Requiring high standards in all areas of education supports efforts to improve and enhance education in Louisiana. What teachers teach and how they teach should be organized around established standards, while student assessment should be based on benchmarks relating to these standards. For health science education at the secondary level, industry specific skill standards based on National Health Care Skill Standards (NHCSS) have been designed. This document provides a guideline to be utilized by school systems throughout the state in the development of local curricula. Based upon approved curricula, course content, instruction, and assessment, methods should be approached by the individual teacher at the school level.

D. The hierarchal framework for development of these standards includes the following: subject area, strands, standards, benchmarks, and suggested exemplar performance activities. Health Occupations is the subject area or content area for this document. A strand is a category of knowledge as it applies to a specific subject area. Standards are described as general statements of expected learner achievement within each strand. A benchmark describes learner expectations: that is, what a student should know and be able to do. Exemplars of things a student could do to demonstrate achievement of the benchmark are sample performance activities . The hierarchal structure overview is as follows.