By 2020, Georgia is expected to need 80,000 nurses, yet have only about 48,000. That's a 40 percent shortfall.
To compound the problem, the average age of nursing faculty is 51. When many professors retire in about 10 years, a new crop of educators has to be ready to train tomorrow's nurses. Additional shortages are projected for pharmacists and many other health care workers.
Business as usual isn't going to solve the crisis in the health care work force. "We can't wait until those shortages worsen," said Susan Gunby, RN, Ph.D., dean of the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University."We have to be proactive and creative about addressing those issues now."
It only took nine months for leaders at Piedmont Healthcare and Mercer University to forge a partnership to create joint initiatives for nursing, pharmacy, research and other medical and allied health education programs, under the umbrella of a Center for Health and Learning.
"This partnership formalizes a relationship that has been evolving for years," said R. Kirby Godsey, president and CEO of Mercer University. "Piedmont has long been an important clinical site for our nursing and medical students."
Godsey believes that these kind of aggressive alliances and collaborative efforts between health care systems and educational institutions are important for the future of health care. "Sharing resources allows both institutions to reach farther and achieve more than either can do alone," he said.
Initially, the partners will collaborate on a new master's-level physician's assistant degree program at Mercer, as well as a research institute that will bring together Piedmont practitioners and Mercer's pharmacy school to study 21st century health care delivery issues.
Changes in the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University will be among the most visible first initiatives. In the fall, the college will be enrolling 50 additional nursing students a year. These Piedmont Scholars will have access to scholarships offered by the hospital (in exchange for employment after graduation) and will have opportunities to begin working at the hospital while in school.
"They'll gain more clinical experience and get accustomed to hospital policies, so their transition from student to nurse should be quicker and easier," Gunby said.
With this fall's class, all nursing students will be enrolled in the National Student Nurses Association, with dues support from both institutions.
"We want to build future leaders in nursing," Gunby said. "As students they'll be able to work on projects with other nurses and be fully involved in the profession even before they graduate."
Hospital staff and Mercer administrators are also planning special events - like a joint research day with international speakers and workshops - so that working nurses, students and faculty will have access to cuttingedge information.
"The potential is limitless for what we can do together," Gunby said.
One project plans for members from both institutions to visit Atlanta eighth-graders to talk about nursing.
"Many students don't decide to become nurses until they're in 11th grade and ?nd that they haven't taken the right courses to prepare for the rigorous curriculum of nursing school," Gunby said.
A summer camp for high school students, held jointly at the hospital and at Mercer's Atlanta campus Learning Resource Center (with simulators and teaching mannequins) is also in the works.
"The partnership is very exciting," said Lisa Hedenstrom, RN, MSN, MBA, CNAA, vice president of patient services at Piedmont Fayette Hospital. "This is a crucial strategy to address the nursing and health care professional shortage in the state. It's going to supply us with additional nurses and allow us to begin to look at nursing faculty needs."
Both partners see the collaboration as a way of encouraging Piedmont nurses to obtain the higher degrees needed to become adjunct clinical faculty and student preceptors, and as a catalyst for joint research projects.
"Everyone has been committed to this from Day One. There's a lot of synergy created when two institutions focus together on health and learning." Gunby said.