"Fund Raise" is key. While the State of Rhode Island increased RIC's funding support lately, allowing the School of Nursing to add three new faculty positions this year and for the next three years, the State Budget is in crisis.

"We need more classrooms and more labs," Williams says. While the State Legislature is cutting back, other state capitals such as Maryland's "are putting in millions."


State Governments and State Universities Also Respond

Indeed, state and hospital joint efforts to address the nursing shortage have created some significant responses, according to the AACN data:

· Tennessee and state health officials in 2007 launched a campaign to raise $1.4 million in scholarships for RNs to receive advanced degrees needed to teach nursing. In Illinois, the governor, in 2005, created the Illinois Center for Nursing which is responsible for assessing the current supply and demand for nurses in Illinois and developing a strategic plan for the state to educate, recruit and train nurses.

· Nursing colleges and universities are also forming strategic partnerships, much as Rhode Island College has done with the VA, and seeking private support to help expand student capacity. For example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida donated $600,000 in funding to both the University of North Florida and the University of Florida to address nursing education. The State of Florida matched each gift with $420,000 of its own.

· In 2005, US Representatives from NY and California introduced the Nurse Education and Expansion and Development (Need) Act. The legislation (H.R. 3569) calls for capitation grants for schools to hire and retain current faculty, helping schools of nursing increasing student conversions, purchasing educational equipment, enhancing audiovisual and clinical laboratories, and expanding infrastructure. Senators Bingaman (D-NM) and Cornyn (R-TX) also introduced the Nurse Faculty Education Act (S 1575) to increase the number of doctorally-prepared nurses serving as faculty.

· In 2005, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded more than $12 million in grant-funding through the High Growth Job Training Initiative, $3 million of which will help address the nurse faculty shortage. A later round of funding has now brought the DOL commitment to more than $43 million.

All the money and effort needed to combat the nursing shortage always translates, of course, into what are really life-and-death issues. Next time you are in a cardiac care unit, or a pediatric cancer center, or kiss your elderly parents good-bye at an assisted living facility, remember the old saying: "You get what you pay for."

This story originally appeared in the April 2008 issue of DOTmed Business News.

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