About $2.6 million in federal grant money over the next three years will help the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville increase the number of trained nurse practitioners, professors at the two universities said.
"We, as a state, are underserved medically, and we need to address shortages, especially in the rural areas," said Claudia Beverly, a professor at UAMS.
Beverly is the principal investigator for a proposal that will receive about $1.6 million in funding over the next three years from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"Nurse practitioners are primary care providers," Beverly said. The grant will support training for master's students and post-master's students specializing in the care of adults and older adults.
Beverly noted how the continued aging of the baby boomer generation has led to an increase in the number of elderly patients.
"We do not have a workforce prepared to care for those older adults," Beverly said. Students will be placed in seven centers associated with the Arkansas Aging Initiative, a program that's part of the UAMS Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging.
Beverly said the grant money will expand opportunities for UAMS nursing students, who she said have a strong interest in becoming nurse practitioners. At UAMS, nurse practitioners can choose among various tracks of study, such as pediatrics or gerontology.
"We have a waiting list in every one of those tracks," Beverly said, adding that the goal is to train 50 to 60 additional nurse practitioners with the grant funds.
At UA-Fayetteville, grant funds of $1,081,735 over three years will help students in the university's Doctor of Nursing Practice program, which enrolled its first students in the fall of 2013.
"We want to expand. We want 30 'DNP' nurse practitioners in rural, underserved Arkansas in the next three years," said Anna Jarrett, an assistant professor at UA-Fayetteville and the principal investigator for the grant.
UA faculty will recruit health care professionals at seven sites, which have yet to be determined, Jarrett said. The university will partner with the nonprofit organization Community Health Centers of Arkansas Inc. to choose some of the sites.
Professionals at clinical sites, known as preceptors, will work with students and provide clinical training.
Jarrett said she is creating an online course for the preceptors. The course will explain what the students need to get from each clinical experience, she said.
The federal funds come from the Health Resources and Services Administration, which last week announced grants totaling more than $94 million to support training of health care professionals, including about $57.4 million specifically for nurse training.
Arkansas State University will also receive funds, with an initial award of $67,188 announced last week to assist with nurse anesthetist traineeships.
Federal lawmakers have proposed a $646 million cut in funding for the Department of Health and Human Services for the 2016 fiscal year, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. This would result in cuts of $10.99 million for nursing workforce development programs, a funding reduction of 4.7 percent, according to the association.
"It's very important to schools that we keep this funding," said Robert Rosseter, the association's chief communications officer.
Rosseter said the average age for nursing faculty members is over 60 years old.
"We don't have enough faculty" to teach future nurses, Rosseter said. "Bringing more people into graduate programs, it kind of increases the pool of potential faculty that we have."
Metro on 07/21/2015