Charleston Area Medical Center isn’t taking the impending nursing shortage lying down.
CAMC, in collaboration with West Virginia State Community and Technical College, launched the Nursing Education Opportunity in 2006. Since then, a total of 112 students have been admitted to the CAMC nursing program and the first class graduated in December.
Working with higher education, CAMC is hoping to fill a predicted gap between nurses needed to care for patients and those actually employed.
National projections show a nursing shortage of more than 300,000 by the year 2020. Locally, hospitals face a particularly difficult challenge due to the aging population and retirement of older nurses.
A lack of nurses would mean much more than a low watermark for the national and local economy though. Without nurses, hospitals couldn’t care for patients.
“Nurses are critical to the care and well-being of hospitalized patients,” said Patricia Johnston, chief nursing officer at CAMC. “They are the caregiver that is at the bedside 24 hours a day, communicating with the physician, assessing the patient’s response to treatment and intervening as changes occur.”
CAMC draws newly trained nurses from several state universities and colleges, including: University of Charleston; Institute of Technology WVU; West Virginia University; Marshall University; Mountain State University; Wheeling Jesuit School of Nursing; St. Mary’s; Southern West Virginia Community & Technical College and West Virginia State Community and Technical College. However, CAMC’s new nursing program is designed to supplement recruitment.
“The interest in our nursing educational opportunity has been overwhelming,” said Janna Inghram, workforce development director. “We expect more than 100 nurse graduates between 2007 and 2009. We are currently in the process of identifying folks for the January 2009 nursing program and have been quite pleased with the response.”
This program is helping to head off the problem of an aging local workforce.
“Similar to the rest of the country, West Virginia’s nurses are aging,” Johnston said. “We must have a steady influx of nurses as we enter a period where many nurses will be moving toward retirement or reduced working hours. The CAMC/WVSCTC collaborative is one way we assure CAMC and the community will have the nurses that will be needed in the future.”
Students participating in this program will work at CAMC hospitals in exchange for their educational costs being paid for by the medical center.
While nursing programs traditionally graduate students in the spring, CAMC’s program will graduate students each December. This helps increase the number of graduate nurses available at the beginning of each year, as opposed to only having a new group of nurses each spring. This also increases the amount of nurses available to work during the winter viral season when there is typically a rise in a patient census.
“In the past we would have a large group of new nurses in the spring,” said Dave Ramsey, CAMC CEO and president. “We had this big void for the rest of the year and found ourselves short of nursing talent in the winter months. We decided it was worth the expense and worked with West Virginia State Community and Technical College to design a program that addressed our need.”
Ramsey has perspective on the evolution of the program in terms of the region’s economic condition.
“When Union Carbide was in the community, people were coming from outside of Charleston with health care experience,” Ramsey said. “Since Dow bought Carbide, we don’t see that influx of health care professionals. And even that was never enough. We just don’t have population growth, and our ability to recruit outside of Charleston is difficult. We wouldn’t be able to meet the health care needs of the local community and region without having a focus on education. Programs like this are producing the type of folks we need to take care of the community.”
The mid-year nursing program also increases the opportunity for more students to be accepted into a nursing program. In the past, students who missed application deadlines would have to wait an entire year for a new class to begin. The program provides some flexibility by offering two summer sessions. Students can take general education courses and carry fewer hours while taking nursing classes during regular semesters.
West Virginia State Community and Technical College’s first graduating class has a National Council Licensure Examination passing rate of 94 percent. The Nursing Educational Opportunity also was recognized by the Southern Growth Policies Board for its industry-education partnership.
Besides nursing, CAMC coordinates education and training for a variety of health care fields, including health unit coordinators and certified registered nurse anesthetists.
“Any given day we have about 500 students walking the halls,” Ramsey said. “We hope that many of them will choose to start their careers and stay here. And if they decide to move, they realize if they can work here, they can be very comfortable working any place in the United States.”
