A federal grant of almost $3 million over 5 years will allow Alaska Pacific College to vastly broaden its nursing-education applications, the college introduced on Wednesday.
The grant, from the U.S. Division of Labor, was one in all 25 given to public-private partnerships throughout the nation to broaden nursing coaching, APU mentioned.
Whereas the complete nation is fighting nursing shortages, Alaska’s state of affairs is especially dire. A 2022 report by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Affiliation discovered that Alaska has the nation’s lowest prevalence of licensed sensible nurses. The report additionally discovered that 1,500 new registered nurses are wanted yearly in Alaska, placing that class on the prime of the state’s well being employee wants.
The scarcity “was the driving think about our software for the grant,” mentioned Marianne Murray, a professor who’s APU’s director of nursing. “The aim of the grant is to broaden and diversify the nursing career in Alaska,” she mentioned.
The grant cash goes largely to hiring college to show nursing in any respect the degrees of instruction on the college. APU has applications for licensed sensible nursing, an affiliate diploma program for registered nurses and a bachelor’s diploma program for registered nurses.
Nursing schooling is comparatively new at APU. The associate-degree registered nursing program began in 2020 and graduated 38 college students over two years, whereas the licensed sensible nurse program is even newer, beginning in 2021, and graduating 9 college students, Murray mentioned.
However with the federal grant, APU is hoping to graduate about 200 new associate-degree-holding nurses and 160 new licensed sensible nurses over the subsequent 5 years, in addition to serving to 40 to 50 nurses advance from affiliate levels to extra complete bachelor’s levels, she mentioned.
APU stands out for the geographic unfold of its comparatively new nursing applications. Its licensed sensible nursing, at present the one program of its variety within the state, operates in Bethel, Fairbanks and Juneau, and expansions to Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough are on the best way. The college has established nursing-education partnerships with Yuut Elitnaurviat and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Well being Corp. in Bethel, Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau and Mat-Su Regional Medical Middle in Palmer, amongst different services.
Coaching nurses in several components of the state is a crucial aspect of APU’s general program, Murray mentioned. “A part of our mission is to have the ability to train college students the place they reside and to have the ability to keep there,” she mentioned.
Additionally vital to this system is its emphasis on care that’s acceptable for the varied cultures of sufferers round Alaska. “We concentrate on the cultural dimensions the place individuals reside their lives,” Murray mentioned. For instance, the nursing applications embody a prerequisite course known as “Culturally Protected Well being Care,” she mentioned.
Apart from enabling the hiring of latest nursing college, the federal grant might be used for different functions, Murray mentioned.
It is going to be used to develop a bridge program for licensed sensible nurses in search of to turn into registered nurses, assist set up an Alaska Nursing Workforce and Training Consortium by means of which nurses will be capable to study instructing alternatives, and fund a small stipend program to assist nursing college students with prices like licensure charges, Murray mentioned. The grant can even be used for pupil assist.
“Nursing applications will be anxious for a pupil,” she mentioned. “It’s at all times useful to have pupil assist for achievement and completion.”
APU shouldn’t be the one Alaska academic establishment increasing its nursing applications.
In February, the College of Alaska Board of Regents permitted a brand new licensed sensible nursing program that might be operated by means of the College of Alaska Fairbanks.
Earlier than then, in December of 2021, the College of Alaska Anchorage’s School of Well being obtained a $2.1 million state grant to assist with recruitment and retention of nursing college.
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