  Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence Some 41,000 qualified nursing school applicants were turned away in 2005 due to a nursing faculty shortage across U.S. nursing schools, according to Karren Kowalski, Grant Project Director at the Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence."Since then, that number has increased," said Kowalski. "In Colorado, we have over 2,600 qualified applicants who are turned away every year - and that's just for nursing. The problem of not enough faculty persists across all health professions." It's estimated that the shortage of registered nurses in Colorado is already twice that of the national average and is expected to triple by 2020. Shortages in rural parts of the state are often extreme: 14 of Colorado's rural counties lack a hospital, eight do not have any assisted-living or long-term care facilities, four don't have a single primary care physician and five have no dentists. "There are many reasons for these shortages," said Kowalski. "The state's growing population, an increase in demand for health care services by an aging population, difficulties in providing competitive salaries for clinical faculty and rural providers, and salary disparities between clinical and academic nursing positions." To help build and retain the state's nursing workforce, The Colorado Trust has committed $1.2 million over three years to the Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence to implement and administer a Nursing Faculty Retention and Recruitment Program for 25 Colorado nonprofit or publicly funded schools of nursing.. "The program aims to provide support to faculty members, as well as improve the academic culture itself by expanding the quality of clinical instruction and - over time - by breaking down the silos that exist among various academic departments and institutions," Kowalski explained. Key components of the four-year program include:
For more information, contact Laurel Petralia, Program Officer, 303-837-1200, laurel@coloradotrust.org. |
