Austin Community College has been awarded a grant for $80,000 from the Carl D. Perkins Grants Program for a second year to continue the distance learning nursing refresher project.

“The main goal of this project is to help bring valuable nurses back into the clinical setting after being out of practice for a period of time,” said Kirk White, ACC’s Director of the Health Professions Institute. “There are valuable experienced nurses across the state of Texas that could return to clinical practice, if they had access to a nursing refresher course.”

The Board of Nurse Examiners (BNE) for the state of Texas requires nurses to take a refresher course if they have been out of “professional nursing practice” for more than four years. Many nurses have maintained their licenses, but have not practiced for several years. Others are working to renew a lapsed license. ACC’s distance learning nursing refresher project gives nurses the opportunity to take the necessary training online and get back to work in the patient care setting. “We have created a course that will allow nurses to complete the classroom portion of a nursing refresher course online, and then complete the required clinical experience in a hospital in their home town,” explains White.

The second year of this project will focus on updating the existing course by adding content like medical Spanish. The grant will also be used to create a student support module, and to promote the use of the course through Texas community colleges.

Community colleges statewide will have the option of hosting the course with ACC teaching the online component, or using the course that has been
developed and teaching it themselves.
ACC’s Health Professions Institute is collaborating on this project with Collin County Community College District, El Paso Community College, Midland Community College, North Harris College, the Texas Hospital Association, and STARLINK.