Governor Rendell Announces $1.8 Million Investment To Add Nurses, Improve Nurse Education

                               Harrisburg, PA  (CompNewsNetwork) - Governor Edward G. Rendell today announced the investment of $1.8 million to expand nurse education opportunities and help increase the number of nurses in Pennsylvania.
 
“We are faced with the serious challenge of finding skilled, qualified individuals to meet the health care needs of the commonwealth’s aging population,” Governor Rendell said. “By training more nurses – and by using state-of-the-art equipment for that training – Pennsylvania will have more graduates on the job who are qualified from day one to deliver the quality care our citizens need and deserve.”
 
Twenty grant recipients will use $679,933 to expand clinical education for nurses and $1.1 million to purchase training equipment. Combined with at least $2.1 million in private-sector matching funds, the total investment for these projects is approximately $3.9 million.
 
Nurse Education Initiative Grants help to increase educational quality and enable institutions to expand their programs by providing faculty coordination and training services. The initiative also enables nursing programs to hire one faculty member who is dedicated to incorporating simulation technology into the curriculum, thereby providing the most productive and efficient use of simulation labs and increasing the number of students nursing programs can enroll.
 
Additionally, the grants help support partnerships between health care employers and nursing education programs to add faculty and increase student enrollment. The grants provide financial incentives to health care employers to lend qualified nurses as faculty to nursing programs that demonstrate a critical need for new faculty to expand their enrollment.
 
The grants are part of a $7.5 million fund in the state budget that is targeted at reducing the state’s nursing shortage.
 
More information is available online at www.paworkforce.state.pa.us under the “Governor Rendell’s Strategy for Building a Skilled Workforce”  link.