Nadine Nehls, Associate Dean for Academic Programs
Nadine Nehls, Associate Dean for Academic Programs |
According to the American Hospital Association, 126,000 nurses are currently needed to fill vacancies in America’s hospitals. This number is expected to rise to 400,000 by 2020.
The current nursing shortage is based on an aging RN workforce and a decline in nursing school enrollment brought on, in part, by a shortage of nursing school faculty.
–Sources: http://www.gao.gov/; http://www.aacn.nche.edu/
Sobering data like this compelled Nadine Nehls, associate dean for academic programs at the UW-Madison School of Nursing (SoN), to heed the call from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to apply for support for advanced nursing education. After discussing the funding opportunity with Dean Katharyn May, Nehls picked up the gauntlet to compete for a portion of HRSA’s estimated $16.5 million in grants.
In collaboration with Jeanette McDonald, SoN associate faculty and a distance-education expert, Nehls proposed an innovative, two-pronged option to HRSA. Their proposed project would prepare RNs to become clinical nurse specialists (CNS) or nurse practitioners (NP) and nurse educators by providing master’s and post-master’s coursework in nursing education.
“The combined expertise of advanced practice nurses and nurse educators simultaneously addresses the shortage of nurse health professionals and nursing faculty,” says Nehls.”
Their proposal was successful and brought nearly half a million dollars to the school for the dual-education project, under way this fall. Nehls also notes that HRSA’s advanced-education nursing grant embraces UW-Madison’s strategic priorities to strengthen learning and amplify the Wisconsin Idea by making education accessible and available anytime, anywhere.
“The advanced practice nurse educator option is asynchronous and Web-based,” reports Nehls. “This means that students can access advanced practice nursing courses online, choosing the time and location of the learning experience. It allows returning adult students with responsibilities of family and jobs flexibility in time and location because of Internet-based learning.”
Nehls adds that the School of Nursing has a large number of graduates from its collaborative nursing program (CNP) who have been clear in their interests in ongoing, online education. (CNP offers a bachelor’s degree in nursing via distance technology.) One appealing aspect of this format is that the student does not have to leave family, job or home community to complete the course requirements.
Pam Scheibel, clinical professor at the School of Nursing, is working with Nehls to implement the program. She and Nehls will work with an outreach specialist to help support the students with logistical, emotional or financial issues. Scheibel, who has special expertise in advanced practice learning and distance-education technology, will assist with marketing and recruitment, project management and fiscal accountability, as well as curriculum and instruction issues.
Nehls is very attuned to the Bureau of Health Professions’ national goals to improve access to quality health care through recruitment, composition and distribution of health professionals. Therefore, a function of the advanced education project is to target the rural, urban and underserved areas of the state as well as minority and male populations.
To date, those individuals expressing interest in the program, reports Nehls, are from Antigo, Crandon, Hayward, Howard’s Grove, Janesville, Madison, Menasha, Merrill, Milwaukee, New London, Onalaska and Westfield.
“Our targeted recruitment of students will increase the likelihood of advanced practice nurses remaining in their home communities to provide health care to underserved and underrepresented populations,” says Nehls.
By the project’s end in June 2007, Nehls hopes to see increased numbers in graduate enrollment and greater potential for workforce diversity and cultural competency from health professionals. Projected figures reflect 50 enrolled by 2007, with 30 enrollees from underrepresented populations.
“Many consumers of health care like to find points of commonality with those who deliver health care,” notes Nehls. “We therefore need diversity, for example, in background, race and gender, within the health care system in order to better serve all consumers.”
To learn more about the advanced nursing education option, contact Pam Scheibel (phone: 263-5199; e-mail: scheibel@wisc.edu) or Marcia Voss, associate student services coordinator (phone: 263-5258; e-mail: mlvoss@wisc.edu).