UF-VA partnership expands nursing class size, adds faculty
September 7, 2007
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida College of Nursing has expanded its class size and will add faculty members through a new partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs designed to address the nation’s severe nursing shortage.
UF was one of four universities the VA recently selected to form the VA Nursing Academy, a five-year, $40-million pilot initiative. The VA-UF partnership — which has allowed UF to expand nursing enrollment in its baccalaureate program by 28 students this semester and to add 10 more nursing students in its accelerated bachelor’s degree program beginning next May — links the College of Nursing with the nursing service at the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System to form the VA-UF Nursing Center of Excellence.
The partnership also will fund new faculty, who will give students more opportunities to gain clinical experience. In the first year of the partnership, five new faculty members will come on board, two UF-based, two VA-based and one who will serve as an evidence-based practice nurse coordinator.
The program’s goals include increasing nursing educational opportunities, enhancing clinical activities, promoting nurse recruitment and retention, improving nursing practice environments and ultimately improving patient care.
“We are very excited to be able to partner with a major health-care system such as the VA to address vital nursing and health-care issues,” said Kathleen Ann Long, dean of the UF College of Nursing. “It is a testament to our College of Nursing and our local VA system that we were chosen to be part of a select group nationwide to take part in this initiative. We are building on a long and positive history of collaboration across our institutions.”
The new faculty members will be embedded in four model nursing units at local VA hospitals. The program will develop and evaluate these innovative nursing units, which will implement evidence-based nursing care for patients while providing clinical supervision for nursing students and encouraging staff development to boost recruitment and retention of nurses.
“It is our hope that through this partnership, we can not only increase the number of baccalaureate-prepared nurses and enhance their educational experiences but also improve nursing work environments as well as achieve the ultimate goal of a higher level of patient care,” said Maxine Hinze, co-director of the VA-UF Nursing Center of Excellence and an assistant professor and department chairwoman in the College of Nursing.
Data will be collected before and after these model units are implemented to measure patient and nurse satisfaction, educational outcomes, student and faculty satisfaction, and other factors. Increases in recruitment and retention of baccalaureate-prepared nurses in North Florida’s VA health system will also be evaluated.
The partnership also will create an advanced residency program to support new graduates during the transition to professional practice and an internship program aimed at improving recruitment and retention of new graduates.
In addition, UF faculty members and their VA counterparts will implement a skin and wound healing education and research program and a perioperative and intensive care clinical and research program.
“I believe the VA selected us based on the comprehensiveness of our plan, which included not only the VA-UF partnership but also establishing the first Nursing Center of Excellence in the VA,” said Maude Rittman, VA director and chief nurse for research at the regional VA health system. “Our nurses will definitely benefit from the expertise of the UF faculty, and we anticipate that the evidence-based practice projects will greatly enhance our clinical practice and patient care.”
To address the ever-growing nursing faculty shortage, the center will also establish a faculty development program for those nurses hired to be joint UF and VA faculty members. These faculty members will be assigned a UF faculty mentor and participate in a teaching preparation program to prepare them to continue to pursue a career in nursing education. VA staff nurses also will have the opportunity to participate in the college’s nursing resource center, assisting with the teaching of clinical skills to help meet the learning needs of the additional students admitted to the program.