There is a growing crisis in the delivery of nursing care in this nation and the supply of nurses is decreasing while the demand is increasing. An $80,000 grant from the Carl D. Perkins Grants program will allow Austin Community College to address this shortage by developing a distance learning nursing refresher course to help both experienced registered nurses and licensed vocational nurses return to a clinical setting much faster. Only nurses who have been out of a professional nursing practice for more than four years qualify for the program.
According to Jane Lewis, vice president of human resources for St. David’s Healthcare Partnership, the average age for registered nurses nationally is 45 years, and in Texas, it’s 44 years. Many nurses are nearing retirement, which could prolong the shortage if more trained nurses don’t enter the workforce, Lewis said.
“In Texas, 10 percent of registered nurses are under 30 years old, which is problematic because it could mean that people under thirty are looking at careers other than nursing, and that’s a concern,” Lewis said. “The nursing shortage is not something that’s going to go away in the short term.”
ACC’s Health Professions Institute is collaborating with Collin County Community College District, El Paso Community College, Midland Community College, North Harris College, the Texas Hospital Association, and STARLINK to offer classroom-based nursing refresher courses, many colleges find it difficult to maintain their own programs due to the high cost of providing such training.
“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. “Nurses often look to their local community college for a nursing refresher course to assist them in their transition back into clinical practice.”
The funds from this one-year Perkins grant will be used to develop an alternative to the classroom-based course, by creating a web-based (and CD-ROM based) version of the refresher course, along with technical manuals that will guide colleges on how to provide the clinical experience portion of the course in their local hospitals. Nurses who have previously not had access to a refresher course, who cannot get into existing courses, or who need the flexibility of web-based course delivery, will all benefit from this new alternative. The web-based course will be delivered to any community college in the state of Texas who wishes to host it, through the Virtual College of Texas (VCT).
“Here in Austin, we have seen the demand for this course grow over the past year from about ten students, to over 40 students annually currently taking our classroom-based course, “said White. ” We are thrilled to received the Perkins funds, and look forward to providing this much needed nursing refresher.”
For more information about ACC’s nursing refresher course contact ACC’s Health Professions Institute at 512-223-7535.
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