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Bridging
Distances in Healthcare
Outcomes to Date - May 2004
While most of the students
are still in training programs, we are already seeing positive
outcomes from the system development aspect of the project.
Below are just a few highlights:
- Fourteen
new rural nursing sites, in twelve communities, have
been established in rural Minnesota
- One
partnering school has put all of their nursing theory
classes online, and many other schools are in various
stages of development toward that goal.
- One
totally new nursing education program has been established
through a Tribal & Community College.
- Another
community collaboration has initiated the start-up of
a private college campus in their community, specializing
in healthcare careers
- Six
of the nursing sites include partnership arrangements
between two or more colleges.
- At
least two nursing programs have adapted their curriculum
to meet the needs of rural nursing sites.
- One
school is offering a revised curriculum that will offer
a dual exit option (Licensed Practical Nurse/Registered
Nurse), making it easier for a student to enter a nursing
track.
- All
partnering schools have adapted their clinical experiences
to meet the needs of the rural communities, healthcare
facilities, and rural nursing sites.
Key
strategies that contribute to the success of the Bridging
Distances project include:
- An
employer-driven model
- Commitment
and sponsorship from local healthcare facilities
- Development
of rural clinical sites
- Strengthening
of a distance learning model for nursing education
- Involvement
of local advisory groups
- Project
support to help nurses to get degrees in Nursing Education,
to help alleviate the nursing faculty shortage, and
support the distance learning sites
The
initiative has already demonstrated tremendous impact on
job-seekers, employers, and economic development. Obviously,
the job-seekers who were accepted as nursing students are
experiencing the most immediate impact, as they are in an
educational program that will help them get jobs in a high
demand occupation, with wages far above what they previously
earned. But the initiative also impacts the job-seekers
who were not accepted into the project, through the increased
capacity of nursing education in rural Minnesota.
The ‘home-grown’ model ensures
that employers are supporting future nurses who have chosen
to live in their community, and will likely not leave for
a metropolitan area that generally offers higher wages.
The healthcare facilities involved in the project are not
only seeing the increase of nurses available to fill their
job openings, but, through the development of the local
clinicals, they have also seen a new energy and enthusiasm
in their workforce. As one of the hospital partners said,
“Having the students in the hospital makes all of us think
about what we want them to learn and how we want them to
perform.”
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