It’s quite a chunk of change the Health Resources and Services Administration awarded the College of Nursing at the University of Missouri–St. Louis this month. The $2,092,506 grant means two things: stronger community partnerships in critical areas and new teaching technology.
The funds from HRSA, an operating division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will go specifically to the Doctor of Nursing Practice program at UMSL. Roberta Lavin, associate dean for academic programs in the college, will serve as the principal investigator.
“I’m very excited about the opportunity this grant gives us to develop and implement a program that is specifically designed to educate students to work with underserved and rural populations,” she said.
Lavin hopes that reaching into those areas (to be determined by efforts to come) will result in more students seeking employment in such clinics. She also hopes to foster diversity within the nursing student body.
Current community partners include Compass Health, Family Care Health Centers, the City of St. Louis Health Department, St. Louis County Health Department and SSM Health Care, but the grant calls for eight additional partnerships to be formed over the three funded years as part of a learning collaborative.
“The partnerships should result in clinical placements in rural and underserved settings where the preceptors agree to participate in training and the clinics help us to evaluate the cost of training,” Lavin said. “The hope is that through well-trained preceptors and extended clinical placements in one system, we can make it cost neutral to the clinic.”
Reviewed 2015-07-28