School of Nursing Receives $1.3 Million Grant
Georgia Southern University’s School of Nursing recently received a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Bureau of Health Workforce, Division of Nursing and Public Health for an Advanced Nursing Education Workforce (ANEW) project. ANEW aims to support innovative academic-practice partnerships that will prepare family nurse practitioner (FNP) and psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) students for practice in rural and underserved communities in southeast Georgia.
With this grant, academic-practice partnerships between the School of Nursing Graduate Program and five federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) will be created to increase the number and readiness of FNPs and PMHNPs graduates to care for rural and underserved populations.
The five FQHCs are as follows:
- East Georgia Healthcare Center to include its ten satellite clinics throughout SE GA;
- Christ Community Health Services in Augusta, GA;
- J.C. Lewis Primary Healthcare Center in Savannah, GA;
- Curtis V. Cooper Primary Health Care in Savannah, GA; and
- Appling Healthcare System/Southern Peaches in Baxley, GA.
In addition to providing primary care in fixed facilities, East Georgia Healthcare Center offers a mobile unit. J.C. Lewis Primary Healthcare Center and Curtis V. Cooper Primary Health Care also provide psychiatric-mental health and behavioral health services, in addition to primary care services.
“The partnership will also offer nurse practitioners employed at the FQHCs the opportunity to attend the yearly School of Nursing’s Graduate Intensive for professional updates and to learn about the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree to further their education,” stated Ursula A. Pritham, Ph.D., WHNP-BC, FNP-BC, SANE, associate professor and graduate program director in the School of Nursing, and the ANEW Grant Principal Investigator/Director. Grant co-authors included Kathryn Hoehn Anderson, Ph.D., ARNP, PMHCNS-BC, LMFT, professor and director of the Center for Nursing Scholarship & Research and Mr. Lee Broxton, scholarship and research specialist at the Center for Nursing Scholarship & Research.
ANEW will also provide traineeships to nurse practitioner students, many of whom would not otherwise be able to afford the costs of attending graduate school. “Furthermore, ANEW will create a pipeline from nurse practitioner student practicums to nurse practitioner graduate employment in those settings. Such a partnership will assist FQHCs in their ability to access and hire additional primary care providers, particularly GS graduates familiar with their practice setting, culture and processes without an extensive start-up period,” noted Pritham.
Posted in General Announcements, SON
