There are a couple LPN to RN and Paramedic to RN bridge programs that are online but you must attend their clinical sites that are available.

Autry Technology Center
School of Practical Nursing

1201 West Willow
Enid, Oklahoma 73703
Phone: (580) 242-2750 ext. 163

Caddo-Kiowa Technical Center
Division of Practical Nursing

P. O. Box 190
Ft. Cobb, Oklahoma 73005
Phone: (405) 643-5511 ext. 263

Canadian Valley Technical Center
Division of Practical Nursing

El Reno Campus
6505 E. Highway 66
El Reno, Oklahoma 73036
Phone: (405) 422-2353

Chickasha Campus
1401 Michigan Avenue
Chickasha, Oklahoma 73018
Phone: (405) 222-7592

Central Technology Center
School of Practical Nursing

Drumright Campus
3 CT Circle
Drumright, Oklahoma 74030
Phone: (918) 352-2551 ext. 288

Sapulpa Campus
1720 S. Main St.
Sapulpa, Oklahoma 74066
Phone: (918) 224-9300

Chisholm Trail Technical Center
School of Practical Nursing

Rt. 1, Box 60
Omega, Oklahoma 73764
Phone: (405) 729-8324

Comanche Nation College
Practical Nursing Program

1608 S. W. 9th Street
Lawton, Oklahoma 73501
Phone: (580) 591-0203

Francis Tuttle Technical Center
School of Practical Nursing

12777 N. Rockwell Ave.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73142-2789
Phone: (405) 717-4382

Gordon Cooper Technical Center
Division of Practical Nursing

One John C. Bruton Blvd.
Shawnee, Oklahoma 74804
Phone: (405) 273-7493 ext. 291

Great Plains Technology Center
Division of Practical Nursing

Lawton Campus
4500 West Lee Blvd.
Lawton, Oklahoma 73505
Phone: (580) 250-5595

Frederick Campus
2001 E. Gladstone
Frederick, Oklahoma 73542
Phone: (580) 335-5525

Green Country Technology
School of Practical Nursing

P.O. Box 1217
1100 N. Loop 56
Okmulgee, Oklahoma 74447
Phone: (918) 758-0840 ext. 246

High Plains Technology Center
School of Practical Nursing

3921 34th Street
Woodward, Oklahoma 73801
Phone: (580) 571-6159

Indian Capital Tech Center
School of Practical Nursing

Muskogee Campus
2403 N. 41 St. East
Muskogee, Oklahoma 74403-1799
Phone: (918) 686-7565

Sallisaw Campus
HC 61 Box 12
401 Houser Blvd.
Sallisaw, Oklahoma 74955
Phone: (918) 775-9119 ext. 108

Stilwell Campus
P O Box 192
Stilwell, Oklahoma 74960
Phone: (918) 696-3111

Tahlequah Campus
P. O. Box 497
Tahlequah, Oklahoma 74465
Phone: (918) 456-2594

Kiamichi Technology Center
School of Practical Nursing

Antlers Campus
P.O. Box 70, 405 SW “O” St.
Antlers, Oklahoma 74523
Phone: (580) 298-6354

Atoka Campus
Hwy 3 West
Atoka, Oklahoma 74526
Phone: (580) 889-7321

Durant Campus
810 Waldron Road
Durant, Oklahoma 74702
Phone: (580) 924-7081

Hugo Campus
107 South Fifth
Hugo, Oklahoma 74743
Phone: (580) 326-6491

McAlester Campus
301 Kiamichi Drive
McAlester, Oklahoma 74502
Phone: (918) 426-0940

Idabel Campus (McCurtain)
Hwy 70 – 3 miles North
Idabel, Oklahoma 74745
Phone: (580) 286-7555

Poteau Campus
1509 South McKenna
Poteau, Oklahoma 74953
Phone: (918) 647-4526

Stigler Campus
1410 Old Military Road
Stigler, Oklahoma 74462
Phone: (918) 967-2801

Talihina Campus
Rt 2 Box 1800
Talihina, Oklahoma 74571
Phone: (918) 567-2264

Meridian Technology Center
School of Practical Nursing

1312 South Sangre Road
Stillwater, Oklahoma 74074
Phone: (405) 377-3333 ext. 324

Metro Technology Center
School of Practical Nursing

1720 Springlake Drive
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73111-5296
Phone: (405) 605-4610

Mid-America Technology Center
Division of Practical Nursing

P. O. Box H
Wayne, Oklahoma 73095
Phone: (405) 449-3391 ext. 265

Mid-Del Lewis Eubanks Technology Center
Division of Practical Nursing

1621 Maple Drive
Midwest City, Oklahoma 73110
Phone: (405) 739-1713

Moore Norman Technology Center
Practical Nursing Program

4701 12th Avenue
Norman, Oklahoma 73069
Phone: (405) 364-5763 ext. 7349

Northeast Technology Centers
School of Practical Nursing

Pryor Division
P. O. Box 825
Pryor, Oklahoma 74362-0825
Phone: (918) 825-5555

Afton Division
P.O. Box 219
Afton, Oklahoma 74331
Phone: (918) 257-8324

Kansas Division
P.O. Box 30
Kansas, Oklahoma 74347
Phone: (918) 868-3535

Pioneer Technology Center
School of Practical Nursing

2101 N. Ash Street
Ponca City, Oklahoma 74601
Phone: (580) 762-8336 ext. 251

Platt College
Oklahoma Campus
School of Practical Nursing

309 S. Ann Arbor
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73128
Phone: (405) 946-7799

Moore Campus
School of Practical Nursing

1939 N. Moore Ave
Moore, Oklahoma 73160
Phone: (405) 912-2777

Platt College – Tulsa
School of Practical Nursing

3801 S. Sheridan
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74145-6502
Phone: (918) 663-9000
Continue reading this post…

I only have 2 nursing colleges in Alaska. If you know of another please send a comment with its location and I will gladly add it to the list.

UAF Tanana Valley Campus
604 Barnette Street, room 424
Fairbanks, Alaska99701

University of Alaska – Anchorage, Nursing
3211 Providence Drive
Anchorage, AK 99508,US

A new study splashed across the interwebs today will doubtless add fuel to arguments about how desperately we need to switch to a "free" health care system if the United States is ever to become a world-class country/save us all from economic ruination/win the World Cup in soccer/etc.

The study surveyed over 2,700 bankruptcy filers in 2007 and found that about 62 percent cited medical costs as the main reason for their going under.

Most of those bankrupted by medical problems were "solidly middle class" before they suffered financial disaster—two-thirds were homeowners and three-fifths had gone to college. In many cases, these people were hit at the same time by high medical bills and loss of income as illness forced breadwinners to take time off work. It was common for illness to lead to job loss and the disappearance of work-based health insurance.

The study also found that well-insured families often had to cope with high out-of-pocket medical costs for co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services. Medical bills for medically bankrupt families with private insurance averaged $17,749, compared to $26,971 for the uninsured and $22,568 for those who initially had private coverage but lost it during their illness.

The highest average costs were incurred by people with diabetes ($26,971) and neurological disorders ($34,167), the researchers found....

The co-author of the study told the press, "Only single-payer national health insurance can make universal, comprehensive coverage affordable by saving the hundreds of billions we now waste on insurance overhead and bureaucracy."

There's no question that a) it would be great to actually reform health care root and branch, including the delivery of services (break the MD cartel already!) and insurance; b) that it is inconceivable that the government will do a better job of minimizing bureaucracy and patient failure; and c) that's likely exactly how Congress and Barack Obama are going to go on this issue. The supposed containment of health care costs in Canada and the U.K. (where patients routinely do whatever they can to exit the public system) is due to rationing, not due to the streamlining of service provision. Just telling people no, you can't have that procedure is one definite way to keep costs down; it seems remarkably unwise, especially in an age of blossoming individualized services for consumers.

To go back to the study: There's simply no reason to conclude anything from extreme cases (which bankruptcies are by defintion), and there's certainly no reason to base general policy on extreme cases. In any case, it seems like the problem described above could be addressed via changes in longterm disability insurance. Indeed, why not simply lobby the government to guarantee incomes for disabled workers, forever and ever?

I haven't read the study but from the descriptions above, the costs are less daunting than they seem at first. One would expect to see bankrupt people filing heavier-than-average costs pretty much across the board. In 2007, health care accounted for less than 6 percent of a household's direct cash outlays, far below housing (33 percent), transportation (18 percent), and food (13 percent); insurance and pension costs, some of which goes to health care in the form of premiums, came in at 11 percent. According to government data, the average household directly spent about $2,700 on health care (actual totals are skewed, with younger people spending far less and seniors far more).

Is it really that hard to bring the health care debate out of the stinky old swamp of single-payer vs. something like what we have now, only marginally more expensive to individuals?

Any sort of serious reform of the health care question really has to start with definitional questions: What exactly is health care? And what is its relation to health insurance? Why can we draw that simple distinction when it comes to, say, cars and car insurance but we hopelessly conflate the two when it comes to health care? To claim that "only single-payer" can save us all is simply intellectually unserious.

I'm all for severing the tie between the workplace and health insurance. I know that my employer has better things to do than be some sort of half-assed insurance broker and I'm guessing that I could do a better job picking plans based on my family's needs. But I'm guessing that the plans emanating from Congress in the dog days of this summer won't be heading in that direction.

Update: Via Alan Vanneman comes this relevant blog post from former Reason editor Virginia Postrel, who comments on a Council of Economic Advisers report that concludes "Nearly 30 percent of Medicare's costs could be saved without adverse health consequences." Writes Postrel:

Think about this for a moment. Medicare is a huge, single-payer, government-run program. It ought to provide the perfect environment for experimentation. If more-efficient government management can slash health-care costs....why not start with Medicare? Let's see what "better management" looks like applied to Medicare before we roll it out to the rest of the country.

This is not a completely cynical suggestion. Medicare is, for instance, a logical place to start to design better electronic records systems and the incentives to use them. But you do have to wonder why a report that claims that Medicare is wasting 30 percent of its spending thinks it's making a case for making the rest of the health care system more like Medicare.

Whole post here.

• "White House Set to Appoint a Pay Czar"

• The outlines of Obama's health care plan become more clear.

• "One of every six dollars of Americans' income is now coming in the form of a federal or state check or voucher."

• The SEC accuses Countrywide's former CEO of fraud.

• The Raelians claim they're going to build UFOland in Las Vegas, "where visitors can attend a Happiness Academy and see a full-size replica of a UFO."

Steve Herzfeld managed an admirably inventive end-run around high healthcare costs for his Parkinson's- and Alzheimer's-afflicted parents. After in-home care was no longer possible, he priced American nursing homes, but found that the cheapest acceptable option was still $6,000. So he sent them to India. Quality elderly care in Puducherry cost less than his father's fixed income. According to the Guardian:

[In India, Herzfeld] could give his parents a much higher standard of care than would have been possible in the US for his father's income of $2,000 (£1,200) a month. In India that paid for their rent, a team of carers—a cook, a valet for his father, nurses to be with his mother 12 hours a day, six days a week, a physiotherapist and a masseuse—and drugs (costing a fifth of US prices), and also allowed them to put some money away...."In India, they really like older people," says Herzfeld, describing how the staff seemed to regard his parents as their own family.

Of course, the care was inexpensive because a couple thousand bucks goes further in Puducherry than it might in, say, Fort Lauderdale. Herzfeld, though, apparently believes that it was cheap because elderly care in America is greedily overpriced by providers. He vents about about healthcare and the profit motive: 

[Herzfeld] believes that India could teach the US and UK a lot about care of the elderly. "In America, healthcare is done for profit, so that skews the whole thing and makes it very inhuman in its values," he says.

I try not to begrudge a man his fantasies, but the idea that the nurses, valets, and masseuses of Puducherry were doing it all out of the goodness of their hearts—rather than the goodness of their paychecks—is condescending. It was simple outsourcing, not subcontinental altruism, that saved Steve Herzfeld so much money.

In Reason's May 2009 print edition, Ronald Bailey wrote about the outsourcing of hip replacement.

Get ready for the Summer of Glove, as in rubber-examination gloves used for digital exams. This time the patient is the entire U.S. economy, which we're being told suffers from bloating and sluggishness due to way too much spending on health care.

Legislation to revamp the health-care system likely would cut the rate of annual growth in costs by 1.5 percentage points, increasing the gross domestic product by more than 2 percent in 2020 above what it would be if no changes were made, according to projections by President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

"Health care reform is incredibly important not just for the American people but for the American economy," Christina Romer, who chairs the council, said in a briefing for reporters on the CEA report released this morning.

Those are the types of bold, long-term predictions that hold as much water as an 88-year-old man on a full-liquid diet. I mean, really, if you're going to make predictions that are completely pulled out of your ass, why not follow what Treasury did with the TARP bailout and just choose a "really big number" picked out of thin air?

More to the point, the Wile E. Coyote Super Geniuses in D.C. have been working overtime since their junior-high theses on proposals to finally fix health care (despite it not being totally clear what the term even means, or how it means very different things to very similar people).

They have seen the past and it didn't work. But that doesn't mean it can't not work this time:

Democrats, who control both the House and Senate, are considering proposals that would require employers to cover all full-time workers or pay a penalty to the government; create a "health exchange" to allow consumers to buy insurance at lower, group rates; set up a new government-run plan to cover some of the uninsured; and levy new taxes to pay for universal coverage.

Employer mandates. Insurance pools. Government programs. New taxes. Hope and change, and even without Tom Daschle in the cabinet! I don't know they do it, but goddamn, it's beautiful.

Exactly how any of the above differs from what we're already doing escapes me. Our health care system is the ugly accretion of decades of stupid government policies (starting with the decision not to tax employer-based health care costs as compensation, thus pushing the idea of tying coverage to the workplace) that have gotten gnarlier and more twisted with each additional, incremental add-on.

So, if you're actually legislatin' in the 21st century on the promise of hope and change, why not actually start thinking about doing some things that are genuinely different and have at least a snowball's chance in hell of working?

Start with injecting actual market forces into health care by disrupting professional cartels that raise the cost of buying any prescription drug by $100 or whatever you get charged for a perfunctory doctor's visit (and by the way, start questioning the prescription drug regime too)?

Inject some actual price signals into the system by getting rid of the tax-code hocus-pocus that creates third-party payer systems and gets employers, most of whom can't turn a goddamn dollar at their chosen field of expertise, into the business of providing health care?

Take an example from fields such as dentistry and eyecare, where fewer services are covered by insurance and hence more open to the sorts of competition and discovery process that routinely drives prices down and the level of services up in every area of exchange from airline tickets to hamburgers to high-tech computer gear. And recognize that health insurance is not the same as health; indeed, it's not quite clear just exactly how the two are linked.

And also take a deep breath and recognize that spending more money on health care is not necessarily a bad thing, if it's the free choice of people (which currently it isn't). Like eating more prepared meals, it can be a glorious sign of increasing wealth.

But most of all, stop acting like characters from Tennessee Williams or William Faulkner. Learn from the past already, don't just mindlessly repeat it.

After stumbling upon some common ground with the crafty hipsters who make toys and also make trouble for government regulators, I'm delighted to find yet another libertarian-compatible hipster venture in the news today. This time, they're meddling in health care:

Started in August 2008 in Williamsburg, Hello Health has attracted roughly 300 members. For $35 per month, members gain access to Hello Health’s website....Unlike most health IT platforms, Hello Health looks more like Flickr or Facebook than, say, Windows 95. Members can IM and email with their doctors, make appointments online, and access their digital health record, which includes blog-post style, doctor-authored summaries of each appointment.

Members are guaranteed appointments within 24 hours of scheduling, and can choose between visiting the office, receiving a house call, or, for minor illnesses or follow-up sessions, videoconferencing with a doc. Hello Heath doesn’t take insurance (though patients with coverage are free to submit bills to insurers on their own), and all appointment fees are set in advance–$100 to $200 depending on the complexity of the visit, with lab tests and generic meds included in the price.

This model may not save the country from entitlement fiscal doom, but this kind of experimentation is exactly what we need right now if we're going to find a way out of the hole we dug for ourselves the Boomers dug and then threw us into.

Of course, if you start to feel too warm and fuzzy toward the denizens of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, there's always the folks on this website.

I have alleles that suggest that I have a lower than average risk of suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Other alleles, however, indicate that I am slightly more likely to experience age-related macular degeneration than other people of European ancestry. In addition, if I need to use the blood thinner warfarin in the future, I should let my physician know that I have a version of the CYP2C9 gene, suggesting that I have a greater sensitivity to the drug and probably should start with a low dose. How do I know this genetic information? Because I paid for a direct-to-consumer genotype test from the California start up 23andMe.

I was especially eager to learn whether or not I carried the APOE4 allele that dramatically increases one's risk for Alzheimer's disease. 23andMe does not provide that information in its research reports, but the raw data it supplies can be exported to a wiki-like tool called Promethease for further exploration. Good news for me, Promethease finds that I don't have that deleterious allele. My failing mind must have other causes.

Genotype scanning is in a very preliminary stage of development. "With only a few exceptions, what the genomics companies are doing right now is recreational genomics," Duke University geneticist David Goldstein told the New York Times in April. "The information has little or, in many cases, no clinical relevance." As one goes through the mass of information—allelic variations linked to various studies of their effects in the peer-reviewed literature—it becomes clear that most of the current genotype information provides little guidance about future health.

But does such direct-to-consumer (DTC) genotyping need to be regulated—or banned? Last month, Germany banned direct-to-consumer genetic testing. In 2007, the Genetics and Public Policy Institute found that 24 states limited or restricted direct-to-consumer genetic testing in some ways. Last year, both New York and California heightened their regulatory scrutiny of genotype scans such as those done by 23andMe, deCode, and Navigenics. The good news is the genotype scanning companies obtained licenses from California authorities, and so can now still offer their services to California residents. Several companies are still navigating through New York State's regulatory maze. Last year, the American Medical Association adopted recommendations opposing direct-to-consumer genetic testing, stating that a health care professional should be involved with any genetic testing.

More recently, Genetics and Public Policy Institute director Kathy Hudson organized and sent a letter urging further federal oversight of all advanced diagnostic tests. The letter was signed by representatives of 108 companies, patient advocacy groups, and health non-profits. The goal is to "get personalized medicine right." The letter urges that oversight of diagnostic tests be risk-based and that regulation of those tests be implemented by means of a Food and Drug Administration rulemaking procedure. The letter further advocates the creation of a mandatory registry for all tests which would collect information supporting the analytical and clinical validity of each test.

When asked via email if the regulatory scheme envisioned by the letter would apply to direct-to-consumer genotype scanning and genomics companies, Hudson replied, "The letter is silent on the mode of sale. It is the risk of the test, not the way it is sold, that the group of signatories were focused on. That means that if a test is of high risk, it would be subjected to heightened regulatory scrutiny whether it was offered DTC or not. Current DTC genetic testing services include those that are of no medical significance (low risk) and some that are of substantial medical significance (e.g. cancer)." She then referred me to the GPPC's list of DTC testing services. On the list, tests for genes for hair loss (presumably low risk) are offered along with tests that suggest risks for cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's disease (presumably high risk).

The high risk in this case seems to mean two things: how likely is the test to be accurate in what it tells customers, and how likely are customers to find out that they are at higher risk for some dread genetic malady. For example, on the GPPC list one finds that the genotyping companies Navigenics and deCode offer results from a scan for alleles that contribute to the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Are they accurate in finding such alleles? I asked Princeton University molecular biologist Lee Silver via email how accurate the DTC genotype scanning tests are. "I ran an analysis on personal genome results obtained from 23andMe and DeCODE for me," Silver replied. "There were about 300,000 data points that overlapped between the two tests. There was not a single data point (among 300,000) that was scored positive in one test and negative in the other." Silver is satisfied with accuracy of such screening tests.

But what about the second risk—that customers of DTC genetic testing services will find out that they have a high risk of being susceptible to some horrible disease? "Granted, there's the possibility that you'll be upset with what you find out about yourself, but that's never been a sufficient reason to keep personal information out of a person's hands, when the person is asking to see it," argues Silver. Currently there are few tests of that sort, the APOE4 Alzheimer's allele test being one of them.

So should people be protected against learning such information without the guidance of a knowledgeable physician or genetic counselor? "Actually, I suspect that most consumers of the 23andMe service know more about modern genetics than do most American physicians and most genetic counselors," asserts Silver. I really hope Silver is wrong about that, but agree wholeheartedly when he says, "And I don't see how anyone can be harmed any more by personal genetic information than by some other kind of personal medical information."

There may well be some inaccurate tests and there will certainly be people who mislead customers about the meaning of certain tests. But do we really need additional federal regulation to weed out bad actors? Most evidence suggests that the current tests are fairly accurate, and that customers are not being misled by the results that are reported. All new technologies involve a societal learning process in which some early adopters try it out, explain to others how it works, and find out its flaws—which newer innovators then fix.

In fact, the way the genetic testing industry will evolve is that the companies that tease out and explain useful information about disease risks and pharmaceutical interactions will be the ones to succeed. The bigger risk is that increased federal regulation will slow down beneficial genetic testing innovations.

Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.

New York Times economics columnist David Leonhardt complains that the tax code is "complex in all the wrong ways," with "layer upon layer of subsidies, deductions, exemptions and extra taxes that serve no good purpose." His solution: make the tax code more intrusive by punishing people for unhealthy habits. He suggests the proposed federal soft drink tax, aimed not just at paying for health care but at discouraging overconsumption of calories and thereby curbing obesity, would be a step in the right direction, one of various possible "Pigovian taxes" on "activities that place a cost on the rest of society." He says "tobacco taxes have become the shining example" in this category.

Leaving aside the question of whether a soda tax would have a significant impact on total calorie intake, there are a couple of problems with Leonhardt's reasoning. First, smoking and overeating (unlike, say, air or water pollution) do not inherently "place a cost on the rest of society"; if taxpayers pick up the tab for the treatment of smoking- or obesity-related diseases, that is only because the government forces them to do so. Second, even if government-funded health care is taken for granted, both smoking and overeating actually seem to save taxpayers money. A 2008 Dutch study, for example, found that thin nonsmokers generate higher lifetime medical costs than obese people or smokers do because they tend to live longer. "The underlying mechanism," the researchers explained, "is that there is a substitution of inexpensive, lethal diseases toward less lethal, and therefore more costly, diseases." If the aim is to reduce government spending on medical care, New Jersey's tax on health club memberships, which Leonhardt cites as an example of "taxes that seem to defy all reason," probably makes more sense than a soda tax.

Note: Now that health care reform is shooting to the top of the political agenda, Reason.tv is happy present once again our video on the topic, "Get Some: How to Fix America's Health Insurance Crisis." Approximately 10 minutes long and originally released during last year's presidential campaign (doesn't that seem like eons ago?), "Get Some" features offers a bold, new solution that will cover almost half of the currently uninsured. And that you have simply not heard anywhere else.

reason.tv's Nick Gillespie isn't making a run for the White House, but he knows how to get coverage to at least half of the 45 million Americans who need it. And while Barack Obama and John McCain argue about who's got the best health care plan, each ignores the simplest solution. Call it the Gillespie Plan: If you want health insurance, get some. "Of people currently classified as uninsured, a conservative estimate says about 45 percent of them would be able to get health insurance right now if they wanted it," says economist Glen Whitman. That estimate comes from a study headed by a Johns Hopkins University researcher, which separates those who could get insurance into one of two categories: Those who earn enough money to buy it, and those who qualify for existing government programs. So how about some real straight talk for a change? If we separate those who can't get coverage from those who can, we can focus more on helping the needy. "So if you can get coverage," says Gillespie, "don't wait for Washington. Go on out and get some." "Get Some" is written and produced by Ted Balaker. The director of photography is Alex Manning.

For embed code and downloadable iPod and HD versions and more videos, go here.