ARIZONA, USA — Burnout has led to many nurses leaving the workforce over the past few years, leaving hospitals and other healthcare facilities using travel nurses to fill permanent staffing positions.
The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) said $43.1 million in grant funding is being given to five universities across the state in hopes of helping address the nursing shortage.
'Vital resources'
It's a shortage of people that Dr. Michael White, Chief Clinical Officer at Valleywise Health, is having to fill in other ways.
To fill all of the permanent nursing positions at the medical center, White estimates another 200 nurses would be needed. Those positions are currently being filled with travel nurses.
"Nursing is one of those vital resources that we all require," White said.
Noticing over the past few years burnout has caused nurses to find a career elsewhere.
"Caring for our patients in these acute care and ambulatory care environments - it can be very draining and very intense," White said.
When it comes to the shortage of nurses, Heidi Sanborn, president of the Arizona Nurses Association said it makes it more difficult for nurses to care for patients with the proper staffing levels and resources.
"The nursing shortage in Arizona is a public health crisis," Sanborn said. "When we don't have nurses where they need to be to deliver the care and to care for our communities, that's something that we all need to stand up and pay attention to."
882 new nursing students
Despite the difficulty of the job, Judy Karshmer, Dean of the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation at ASU said students are still wanting to join the profession.
"We have way more students than we can handle, which is why this grant makes all the difference because we can help with that bottleneck, get them into our accelerated program and get them out into the world," Karshmer said.
ASU received a $5.5 million grant from ADHS to help train 104 new nursing students in a 12-month accelerated bachelor's program. These students will be required to already have completed a bachelor's degree and have prerequisites done to become a nurse.
The college already has applications open for a summer start date.
"It's really those students would have to wait and wait until a few spots opened up for them. But this funding helps us do it now," Karshmer said.
In addition to ASU, ADHS provided grants to Creighton University (Phoenix), Grand Canyon University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona. The funding was approved by the Arizona State Legislature last year.
In total, the grant funding will cover the cost of tuition and fees of the accelerated nursing program for a total of 882 nursing students.
"We're hoping that this just paves the way for increased infrastructure that we'll be able to continue to take in more and more students," Karshmer said.
Practicing for four years in Arizona
Students going through these programs will also commit to working in Arizona after they graduate for four years.
"Our nurses are trying to do the best that they can with what they have and so knowing that we have nurses that are going to be going through programs and coming out to help them at the bedside, is a really important step to supporting them," Sanborn said.
That kind of long-term support healthcare leaders hope will help the shortage.
"To be able to have that pool of talent to be able to recruit from and have come into our healthcare delivery organizations is a wonderful opportunity for all of us," White said.
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