Pair of hospitals team up with OU
Partnership will expand nursing education
The strain of COVID-19, combined with a decades-long shortage of nurses, has left the state’s health systems practically begging for help.
For months, nurses, doctors and other health care workers have dealt with COVID-19 in addition to regular duties on behalf of patients. And they have fought personal burnout and exhaustion.
Health systems are offering large bonuses in an attempt to retain the staff they do have and launch new programs to add reinforcements to the field.
“The only way we’re going to be able to educate more nurses is through partnerships.” Julie Hoff, dean of the OU College of Nursing
Now, the University of Oklahoma is expanding its nursing education program, partnering with hospitals in Norman and Duncan to offer additional sites for students seeking a bachelor's degree in nursing.
It's a boon both for the college and the hospitals, which hope to reach more students interested in nursing careers and retaining nurses educated in their own communities.
Expanding beyond the OU Health Sciences Center campus in Oklahoma City, students who enroll in the new programs will take classes and do clinical rotations on-site at the hospitals.
“The only way we're going to be able to educate more nurses is through partnerships,” Julie Hoff, dean of the OU College of Nursing, said at a news conference Tuesday at Norman Regional Hospital.
Rather than compete with Norman Regional for nurses with masters and doctoral degrees — the college needs them to teach, and the hospital needs them to practice and to research — the plan is to join forces, Hoff said.
By offering additional locations, OU hopes to reach more students interested in nursing. Hoff said her goal is for the college to offer other similar partnerships in the future, too.
“Our hope and our desire is that this program can be repeated in other healthcare industries,” said Brittni McGill, the chief nursing officer at Normal Regional Health System.
Coleman Seaborn, a senior in OU's nursing program who's set to graduate in the spring, has commuted from his home in Norman to the Oklahoma City campus for four years, he said.
Had this program been around when he was starting school, he would have applied, he said.
“It's not a bad drive, but it would have been very convenient to be this close,” he said.
The nursing shortage is a problem nationwide and across Oklahoma. The pandemic only worsened the shortage as some nurses have burned out and left the profession.
“There are not enough students in the nursing programs to stop the bleeding,” Dr. Woody Jenkins, a Stillwater physician who sees patients at Stillwater Medical Center, said Tuesday on a Healthier Oklahoma Coalition call with reporters.
Where he works, the hospital has many job openings but faces steep competition for a limited pool of nurses.
To anyone considering the nursing profession, leaders stressed that their skills are needed.
“We need you,” said registered nurse Joan Kemmet-Greenleaf, who retired from Norman Regional in 2013 and now serves on the board of the Norman Regional Hospital Authority. “We need your skills. And we need your compassion.”