Letter to the Editor
Article Outline
To the Editor:
Thank you for your recent issue, “Special Focus on Partnerships.” In today's healthcare crisis, partnering with other agencies to improve the healthcare system in any way is to be applauded. I was especially interested in the article “Partnering with rural communities to meet the demand for a qualified nursing workforce.” I was encouraged by the community's willingness and enthusiasm to provide more highly educated nurses.
Because the rural healthcare system has its own unique challenges, this article opened up insight about breeding a nursing workforce to tend to the needs of its own community. Partnering with a local community college to provide associate degree nurses the opportunity to obtain a bachelor's or master's degree was a great solution to the problem of too few bachelor's- and master's-prepared nurses. As an associate degree nurse (ADN) working towards a bachelor's degree, I think it would have been a great opportunity for me to work with a university that had a partnership with a local community college.
The nursing shortage we have today is very comparable to 9 years ago. In a study comparing rural and urban healthcare settings by LaSala,1 many of the same obstacles were presented in having a qualified workforce in their rural communities. Home health care, ambulatory care, and public health care are the major areas of nurse shortage in the rural communities. The framework used in the study Nursing Outlook published, “Determining program feasibility,” was not all-inclusive, in my opinion. The opportunity for furthering nursing education alone is not a sole determinate for nurses to go back to school. Other variables should be included in further feasibility studies to determine an accurate student recruitment estimate. Other rural communities are finding success in recruiting ADNs to obtain Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees by focusing on nurses as leaders in the community, and in a BSN program, leadership is a priority. Ouzts et al2 found that even with flexible scheduling and a completely online BSN completion program available, they were still having difficulty recruiting ADN students. Because only 13% of ADNs pursue higher nursing degrees, it would be beneficial for the community involvement to include individual incentives to return to school: grant money, child care discounts, and other incentives to the potential students, because these are common barriers for furthering one's education, not just a new, high-tech building.2
Overall, the approach this area of the country is taking is an admirable one and I hope to see more stories of communities working together with health agencies and universities to better the health of their people. This is a step in the right direction for a healthier community.
References
PII: S0029-6554(09)00133-X
doi:10.1016/j.outlook.2009.07.007
© 2010 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.
